Full Bloom
by Wild-Bite
Summary: CH5: Years into the future, Orochimaru is STILL being a pain in the butt. So to kill him once and for all, Tsunade dispatches our favorite gang of highly incapable Jounins to the Hidden Sound Village. Will they succeed in kicking his ass or die trying?R
1. Chapter 1: Thorn

**_Disclaimer _: ****I don't own anything in Naruto and any of its content or original characters: they belong to Kishimoto Musashi and his kick-ass team. I do own this story (of questionable quality I might add) though! **

(Note:a couple of these first chapters were plain illegible or riddled with typos, so what you're reading right now is a reposting.)

Although reviews are very appreciated since this is my first story ever, I've still decided not to request reviews for it to keep going on (a decision which I'll probably live to regret). I don't mind getting criticism as long as it remains CIVILIZED, INTELLIGENT and CONSTRUCTIVE. Anyway, for those of you whom are familiar with my work ethics, you know the gig: I'll just keep writing at my own pace, in my free time when I have any and whenever the heck I feel like it. The updating's going to be very inconsistent but it's not like it matters anymore.

Expect some OOC from the characters since this mostly centers on Naruto and his friends in their late teens and early adulthood. You know they have plenty of room for growth in that meantime. For better or worse.

**This story should be simple enough compared to some super sophisticated plots we find here on the website but I do believe the way a story is told can alter it completely. Keep in mind however that this is an extremely warped alternate universe which doesn't really exist in the Naruto timeline, so I'll have to ask readers to remain broad-minded.**

**This story isn't rated PG-13 because of profanity but rather because of its political incorrectness and occasionally because of its sheer stupidity. And as far as adult situations go, I am strongly opposed to gratuitous sexuality and aggressive graphical description: if there is to be any of that stuff at all, it'll be subtle or vague so that it actually retains MEANING. There's a distinct difference between writing cheap vintage porn and actually telling a story.**

**One last thing: I don't DO yaoi nor yuri. Personally, I think it's just creepy. Not the fact that some people are homosexual mind you (which is perfectly fine in our society), but MAKING them homosexual when they're not supposed to be. Seriously people, that's just really. REALLY. WRONG. Retarded jokes however are fine.**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

_Full Bloom: A Naruto fanfic_

_**Chapter 1.** Thorn: Broken memories_

"This is such a hassle, meeting in a flower garden...So typical of her. But I've gotta say, this is a really nice spot. Nice view from here."

He looked around at the flowers surrounding him, and peacefully breathed in their sweet perfume. He had never really taken notice of how beautiful the forest situated behind the village was. In fact, he had rarely even entered that forest: this place was known as Konoha's equivalent of an exotic flower garden, and it's not like he had a good reason to visit often. Understanding flowers, using flowers and arranging flowers in particular were activities strictly reserved to the kunoichi of Konoha, while male shinobis in training like himself in his younger days would have spent most of their time at the Academy, doing...uh...basically vegetating, probably. To each gender their own plant lore. Anyway, even though this garden was a peaceful and overall pleasant place to be, it should also be mentioned there was plenty of ways to get poisoned or eaten if one didn't know exactly where he/she was stepping around in the accursed place: these plants were after all also integrated in the kunoichi's field weaponry. You know, like in 'stuff that helps ya kill people'. There was a very good reason why Naruto couldn't get too comfortable right now, and it was because "lethal" in some cases was a complete understatement. Thinking about it, the young ninja corrected his previous statement.

"...Well, it's a decent spot WHEN I'm not in mortal danger. Hmm, that sounded about right. For crap's sake, my jacket's already ruined! This is the last time I EVER set foot in here!"

The poor guy was unnerved enough already: he had barely even entered the forest that he had already almost lost an arm. Naruto actually considered himself lucky to have had good enough reflexes to only have his jacket's sleeve bitten off by the giant carnivorous plant at the entrance. The blond boy winced thinking about what could have happened back then if he hadn't been paying attention: this definitely wasn't the moment to get poisoned or have a limb chewed off. Kunoichi flowers weren't his bag, he knew that, and he wasn't about to take any useless risks. And he risked a lot: in the case he survived an eventual accident, he'd probably get sent back on a stretcher to the medical office. Yet again. And if that old hag Tsunade happened to be there, she'd sigh at his hopelessness. Yet again. And IF the fat old nurse assigned to him was there too, she would stab him with a syringe just for the heck of looking professional. YET AGAIN. Nope, he was better off sticking to what he knew best: ramen. And there was not even a bowl in sight.

As you can probably imagine, for field missions involving combat, it wasn't very practical to be only well-versed in the deadly arts of ramen: but it might always come in handy someday. You never really knew.

"She's sure taking her time," he mumbled, and settled down comfortably at the base of a tree, after checking it was perfectly safe to do so.

Well, it was partly his own fault for showing up too early, but he just hadn't been able to contain his excitement: you see, it was because Naruto HAD a damn good reason to be here today. And it wasn't just a passing feeling of masochism either. No, he was actually meeting up with someone, and even now the idea was making him feel light and strangely happy: knowing our hyperactive friend, it was a miracle he was even managing to keep his cool. Or not. Rather, the fact that there was a large number of man-eating flowers living in the surroundings probably had something to do with it. It sounded so very lame for a ninja, but it's not like he wasn't aware that acting too jumpy could cost him a limb right now: getting your favorite jacket gruesomely mutilated taught you these kinds of things.

...But all things considered, this was still a great day for him!

"For Sakura-chan to even ask me to wait for her...For a one-on-one talk? Maybe she wants to confess her feelings? She must have finally realized just how godly a ninja I am compared to Sasuke!"

He grinned at the idea. He knew he was just flattering himself yet again, but part of him wanted to believe it wasn't totally false. He wasn't that repulsive, right? After all, he had grown a bit over the last few years. Well, not that much: he was still a pretty short guy. But it was just enough for Sakura-chan to put her head on his shoulder, and so he didn't care to grow much taller than that. And it's not like he was totally unattractive either in his own right, although his traits were still childish and retained that smug kid look he hadn't grown out of yet. Probably another crucial factor was that he bore proudly cheek whiskers for facial hair, something which understandably didn't score too well with the ladies. I mean, geez, a goatee's bad, but whiskers are plain abnormal...But then again, we were talking about a Konoha ninja here, and the freak reserve never ran low in that village's ranks. Eh, it was a crazy world where guys could be born with facial makeup or look like flaming homosexuals and yet have no one look twice. In fact...you know what, scrap that last statement about Naruto being abnormal: in short, positive terms, if anything, he was relatively NORMAL. But that meant he wasn't anything special either, unlike a certain ex-teammate of his.

"All right, fine, Sasuke still owns me in the looks department. I'll get him there...someday...But for now, my Ninjutsu still rules big time!"

Or so he wanted to believe. He was made very aware of just how his Taijutsu needed work every time he sparred with a Taijutsu-oriented Genin/Chuunin and got his 1000 shadowclones'butts kicked one by one. Do the math: that's a lot of ass. As for his non-existant Genjutsu, he had always though that was something left to girls and brushed off that weakness as a detail. You could say it was a convenient excuse, but it was also true that only Kurenai in the whole darned village seemed to specialize in Genjutsu and let's face it: she sucks ASS. Heck, getting caught in your own attack like an amateur...But I'm digressing. So what did Naruto have left anyway to even qualify himself as a ninja? Incomplete self-styled Rasengan, baby. And summoning frogs whenever he ran low on proteins for his ramen.

"Note to myself: must put some spare time aside to learn higher and more effective forms of Taijutsu...And catch up with Sasuke...Aw man, this blows! But I can't give up now: that Hokage title is within my reach! I just have to keep on training steadily ..." he told himself confidently.

At this pace, the Hokage seat didn't seem too far away. Well, not too much: maybe 30 years more or so to go. Fine, so it was a damn long time. And a lot of hellish training in perspective, too: but by then, according to Naruto's very unrealistic calculations, he would have long surpassed Sasuke and have him eating his dust. He always chuckled at that mental chibi image of himself towering over a defeated swirly-eyed chibi Sasuke, but he knew very well it would be no walk in the park: over the years, Naruto had gained not only respect for his Uchiha teammate, but now also knew Sasuke's level far better than anyone. Thus, Naruto had stumbled upon a shocking realization: although he could still somewhat compete with the Uchiha right now, the difference between them was still there, ever-present, neatly traced and immovable...if not growing. You see, since that morning Sasuke woke up and realized while eating his cereals that it would be a good idea to copy off Naruto's trademark Kage Bushin no jutsu, Naruto had more and more trouble keeping up with the Uchiha prodigy. But that was nothing to be ashamed of, people told him. Sasuke's lineage was almost exclusively composed of geniuses and sexy bitches, after all, and as the latest offspring of the clan he was in no way putting that prestigious history to shame. Besides, for a Uchiha, skill and beauty obligatorily had to go hand in hand: any fault to follow that trend was punishable by castration and banishment from the clan. Look at Itachi, for instance. True, his mad mad ninja skillz had made him Anbu captain at age 13, BUT his sexiness was not up to standard: and that was totally UNACCEPTABLE for the clan's untainted prestige. You can probably guess what happened afterwards, seeing the present Itachi: only a man unsure of his masculinity could shamelessly wear that kind of disturbing flower-printed cloak out in the open. Yuck. Anyway, there were probably several other sick rules going on in Sasuke's clan, but for now let's just say that their overall success was all due to the Sharingan they passed from generation to generation.

THE Sharingan.

"Curse that Sharingan, copying all the jutsus I bust my ass off learning! That's so like Sasuke, using cheap tricks to win fights! Ah, well I'M much better, since I would never have to resort to some lame bloodline of mine to get through life!"

Not that he could, by the way: Naruto didn't HAVE a bloodline. And he wanted a Sharingan, too. Badly. Who didn't? You could brag about it to your family and friends, show it off all day, and when you'd glare at annoying people they'd immediately shut up. Life could be THAT good simply because you had red eyes with freaky little wheels in it: no wonder even Orochimaru wanted one. But the REAL reason why every guy wanted a Sharingan, you see, was that it could transform you into an instant chick magnet. No, really: it could do that. This phenomenon could be explained by the fact that each single Uchiha cornea contained a very healthy dose of the Mr.Smooth gene, more than enough to transform any wimp off the street into a living incarnation of Japanese uber-coolness. For instance, you just KNOW Hatake Kakashi was just a lazy bum before he ever signed up for that eye transplant. And would you just look at him now: he's STILL a lazy bum, but a uber-cool one. It was all in the eye.

"...Oh well, no use moping about what I don't have, I guess." Naruto sighed and got to his feet: the approaching footsteps and familiar voice made him realize his thinking time has just been spent. There she was.

* * *

"...areful, however: this bell-shaped flower contains a powerful narcotic pollen. We have a good example here. Here, hold it Mina-chan...be careful! Drop it and we're all screwed, ya hear me! You see, when this flower has fully blossomed, it is perfectly capable of knocking out a tiger for a couple of days. That's enough to kill a full-grown man though, so remember to carefully calculate the amount of pollen you girls use if you ever fall across this flower on future missions. Well, you're free to use the full dosage if you actually wanna kill someone, like your annoying mother-in-law, but that's another story. Actually, don't tell anyone I even said that." 

The class gathered around the young pink-haired woman and the little green-haired girl named Mina-chan, who was now holding the said flower. And yes, flashy hair coloring was probably a current fad in Konoha village. Either that, or every color in the visible light spectrum could be considered a natural hair color.

"It's so beautiful..." said one of the little girls.

"A flower is most beautiful just before it's about to die. It's sad, but that's how it goes. It's strange how beauty and death are related, ne?"  
The teacher patted Mina-chan on the head.  
"Well, this concludes our final lesson. As this is our last class, I'd like to say good luck to all you girls in your Academy exams. Don't disappoint me, okay?"  
She smiled sweetly at her students.  
"Sakura-sensei, but what if we don't pass? What if we fail to become Genins?" another girl asked.  
"Then I'll be seeing you again, Ayane-chan. But don't forget, the important thing is not to succeed at everything..."  
"It's to always try our hardest." The class completed for her.  
"Yes. Make me proud and pass, girls. Or I'll KILL you myself. All right, you're dismissed."

No matter how many times he saw Sakura-chan teach a class, Naruto would smile to himself: it almost gave her a motherly look whenever she was surrounded by her loving students. It made her give off an aura of importance and maturity, something which he didn't quite yet acquire himself. Well, it was probably the Chuunin vest she wore. Yup, that goddamn Chuunin vest. He'd get everything along with his own Chuunin vest too...when he would finally get his hands on it! Unconsciously, in frustration,Naruto had tightened his hand into a fist. For years now, he had been failing the Chuunin exam because he was considered too "reckless" to lead a team. Either that, or it was simply considered too cheap to knock out a male opponent by massive blood loss with his Sexy no Jutsu. But Naruto did things his way, and had always thought the judging was too picky anyway. As far as he was concerned, whatever worked was fine, blood could come out from the nose just as it could from any wound he could inflict and finally, the Harem no Jutsu was totally, unquestionably INVINCIBLE. No kidding: when used at full potential, it could kill by anemia. It was something to be both feared and used responsibly.

Sakura's class was spreading out by now, the students walking away chatting with each other. Only a little girl remained with Sakura-chan, but that didn't bother the ever-confident Naruto too much, considering how much of a hit with women he was. Wow, you could almost see the sarcasm dripping out from that last sentence. Not that it mattered. Adjusting his forehead protector one last time, Naruto took a step towards his long-time friend.

* * *

"Oh, there you are Naruto! You've been there for long?" Sakura said, beaming at his sight. 

Considering she was only good at theory, she probably still sucked at detecting people's presence in any radius, great or small.

"I've been there a while. Not much fun, though: I was mostly trying not to get eaten by the infamous carnivorous flowers you find in this garden." Naruto stated as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Remember he only had one sleeve left by now, but Sakura barely noticed. In Japan, the one-sleeved look either meant you got into a fight or you were trying to make a fashion statement. Sadly enough, it was usually the latter.

"Oh, I see. You really have to watch out for those. We usually lose a kid or two during these classes when I'm not paying attention, but heck, I never got any complaints from parents. So, did you enjoy the class?"  
"I'll never get used to it. You've matured so much over the last few years that it's scary."  
"Eh, don't start talking like I'm becoming an old woman or something!"

They laughed. A word of caution to you guys: if your girlfriend's a kunoichi and that she answers your bad joke with something like this, start running FAST. You have much to fear.

"Well, Mina-chan, this asshole here is Uzumaki Naruto. He used to be my teammate during my Genin days. Say hello to him, Mina-chan. I'm sorry Naruto, she's a bit shy. A bit traumatized, actually: she doesn't talk much anymore ever since she witnessed her twin sister getting gruesomely digested alive by the said plants a week ago."

"Oh, I see." Said Naruto, completely unfazed. And they were still smiling while saying all this.

Living in a ninja village, you heard that kind of stuff a lot. Usually from the teachers whom sent out youngsters into the forest of Doom for ultra-hardcore survival training amidst wild animals: considering the poor kids were only armed with a single butter knife per group of five, it wasn't that surprising that only about half of the class usually made it back alive. Or you'd simply hear of casualties from those teachers whom taught shuriken-catching classes: did you know that a lot of people, when given a shuriken to throw at another student, instinctively aimed for the head? All in all, infant mortality was like a good joke in Konoha Village, the kind of thing you could talk about over coffee in the Jounin lounge.

Mina-chan just nodded bashfully to the older man, and whispered into Sakura's ear.

"But why isn't he wearing a Chuunin vest too?"

* * *

Naruto and Sakura were now taking a stroll in the garden. Mina-chan's parents had previously come to pick their snotty little brat up, and they were now alone. What else to do than take a walk? And the best part was that Sakura knew her way around, so there was a certain degree of safety. 

"I'm sorry about Mina-chan, she..."  
"No, it's fine. It's true, I'm not a Chuunin yet, although you and I graduated from the Academy at the same time. She has the right to be surprised."

They walked some more in silence.

"But you do know it's just a technicality, don't you? You're one of the most prominent Genins...Why, if you had been just a tad less reckless during the last Chuunin exam, then..."

Obviously, she didn't witness all the Sexy no Jutsus he had pulled off during the exam or she wouldn't be saying that, now wouldn't she? All right, we'll cut down a bit on the stupid remarks here to build up the dramatic atmosphere: there's supposed to be DRAMA in this.

"Yeah, I know. But don't worry about me, Sakura-chan, I'll pass for sure next time!"

He gave her a typical Naruto thumbs up complete with foxy grin, which earned him a soft smile.

"I hope so. It doesn't feel right being a Chuunin without you, Naruto. After we've been in Team 7 for so long together, it just feels really...Well, off!"  
"I bet it does, ne?"

They smiled: they had grown very close to each other during the former days of team 7, whereas before that Sakura openly disliked Naruto and wouldn't even acknowledge his existence. Now was that some radical improvement or what? It was moments like these Naruto felt his efforts had been all worth their while: so what if he wasn't a Chuunin? As long as Sakura-chan cheered for him, he would never feel bad. He would live strongly and without any regrets...

We all know how Naruto felt about Haruno Sakura: he loved her. He loved her as a friend, and of that mad and feverish love only a young boy could have for a young girl. After all, he was in that phase where impulses could take over reason, and where youth and adulthood collided together into an unorganized mess: in simple terms, Naruto was now an adolescent. It was a time of life just as punctuated by numerous bursts of joy as it was by extended periods of spleen, where depth and morbidity could live symbiotically together or repel each other in eternal conflict. An adolescent was unstable, and could be a pack of nerves just as he/she could be a totem of serenity. An adolescent could be on fire like your mom's overcooked meat loaf or dull like a televised chess match with a turn interval of 10 minutes. Adolescence was an age where you learned to really laugh and to really cry, and an age where you placed into use those Sesame Street lessons about moving on and never giving up. Because being an adolescent meant being able to live both the summum of passion and numbness, and...simply learning to be strong.

But said like this, it sounds more like a fatal disease than anything, wouldn't you agree? Man, I suck at descriptions. Now where was I? Ah. Yes.

The silence had fallen between the two of them: Naruto didn't usually get this much time alone with Sakura-chan and now that he did, he was at a loss for words. He wondered if she was feeling uncomfortable, too? He had to break off this awkwardness, somehow...He looked around for something to talk about. But you know what? In cases like this, having a knack at stating the obvious wasn't helpful.

"There sure are a lot of flowers here."  
"...Uuuh...Yes. This IS a flower garden."

Naruto somehow managed to hold back the echoing "D'oh!" lingering in his throat and tried to develop his blunder into something else. Anything.

"So...It just occurred to me, but I never asked you this. What's your favorite flower, Sakura-chan?"  
"Oh, me? Well, it's probably a bit cliché...but I like roses."

Well, the REALLY cliché answer would have actually been cherry blossoms since that's her name, but come on, we're beyond that. Really.

"Roses? Those things full of thorns? Uh...how about orchids?"

Couldn't she just like orchids or something less tricky to get, he caught himself thinking and sighed. Sakura shook her head.

"Orchids are pretty, but they're very common: the rose is a more elegant flower. I especially like the red variety that's grown here in Konoha Garden...Why, like those over there for instance. Wow, and they've fully matured, too...You've heard what I said in class about flowers in full bloom, right?"  
"Yeah, they're most beautiful just before they die, aren't they?"

In a swift and well-calculated motion of his trusty kunai, Naruto had cut down a red rose on their way and offered it to her.

"What is that for?" She asked, almost puzzled.  
"For being you. I don't need a reason, right?"

Naruto thought giving Sakura-chan a flower might get her into a more romantic mood. Eh, he picked off that tip from Ino and she's a girl, so it's gotta mean something. But then again, the Yamanaka clan DID run a business selling flowers, now didn't they? D'OH!

"That's sweet of you...Well the truth is, do you know whom roses remind me of?"

An alarm went off in Naruto's head for some reason: that bad gut feeling had already given him the answer he didn't want to hear.

"Sasuke?" He tried half-heartedly.  
Let's not even discuss his odds about getting the wrong answer, here.  
"Yup! Just like Sasuke-kun, a rose eclipses any plainer flowers by its sheer beauty. And you see this red color? In some cultures it represents pride, nobility, majesty: it stands tall amongst others and with these thorns as its defense mechanism it keeps the undesirables at bay, so it's hard to approach. But if you know how, then...you can pick the flower and enjoy its beauty up close."

She giggled and looked at the rose lovingly. Naruto thought he saw her blush a bit. This was NOT going smoothly. He had known she probably still had that childish crush on Sasuke, but he had gambled on whether she had given up on it or not. But one thing was for sure: the wind wasn't right yet, but he knew very well that if he didn't set sail right now and change the subject, everything would drown in a sea of Sasukes.

"So, Sakura-chan, you wanted to talk about something important? You didn't call me out here just because you wanted to flower talk with silly old Naruto, now didn't you?"  
"What makes you say that?" She gave him an amused look.  
"Well, you did ask me to wait for you after your class. And since the chance of being eavesdropped in this place are pretty low, I just figured out that much. Always look underneath the underneath, as Kakashi-sensei used to say. That's the only important thing I learned from him, though: we probably all improved infinitely more in the subtle arts of bullshit."

Sakura almost wanted to laugh remembering their teacher's frequent tardiness and following excuses: but this was no good, she wanted Naruto to take her seriously on what she was about to tell him. Then again, setting up a serious mood was always quite difficult when she was talking with someone like him: Naruto was someone whose presence was a thing of joy and wonder.

"Well, no use hiding it then...You see...I wanted you to know...You know I...Well, it's kinda embarrassing to tell you this."  
"Surprise me."

But he didn't really want to be surprised: there was 3 words he specifically wanted to hear.

"You see...Well, I..."  
"Like me? Like talking with me? Like spending time with me? Like hitting on me?...Wait, hitting me?"  
"Heeheehee, oh, Naruto! It's not like that...Look, you're not liste..."  
"Figures." He chuckled, though a bit sourly. "You've had a crush on Sasuke forever now. As if that was ever going to change."  
"Naruto, that's not the point...You see, I'm...pregnant."

There was a sudden silence. Naruto's eyes shot into hers, desperately scanning for any trace of amusement. She was joking, right? He tried to regulate his breathing. The hilarity of the moment had died instantly as if all the clowns in the world had vanished. But then again, no one liked clowns. I make no sense.

"Oh God...How did that happen? Did someone take advantage of you while you were drunk or something? I swear, when I get my hands on him, I'm gonna..."  
"Don't be silly. It's Sasuke-kun."  
"Sasuke?" Naruto asked, incredulous.

The stern-faced Uchiha was probably the person he less expected that from. Did Sasuke even care for girls to start with? Naruto after all had heard about some weird going-ons in the Uchiha clan: something about 'preserving prestige' or the like...

"But I thought...?"  
"Sasuke-kun may look cold to most people...But actually, he's a very kind man...Compassionate...No, passionate...He craves human companionship just as anyone would. You know what? He even proposed to me after he found out about my condition..."

She blushed again, but by then, Naruto was too shocked to even care. He was now dealing with inner shards, and that was no jutsu.

He had felt his heart shatter and crumble into pieces.

"...Is that why you called me out here? You wanted to tell me that? I don't see the relevance in doing so, nor why I should care. Now if you're done wasting my time, I must be going."

His legs began to carry him away: he had heard enough. He didn't want to hear any more. Right now, he didn't want to hear anything. He didn't even bother to turn his face back when she took hold of his wrist from behind.

"No, wait! I told you because...I know, Naruto. You wouldn't have taken care of me all these years if you didn't feel the way you did. But I can't...offer you anything more than my friendship. I'm sorry."

The rose he offered her was slowly placed back into his hand.

"What I wanted was to apologize to you. I'm sorry."

She turned back and walked away...

* * *

Then, about an hour passed before Naruto came back to his senses. AND realized he was screwed since he didn't know his way out of the forest. Yells of pain and anguish would be heard for the rest of the day...

* * *

It was a cool night, as Naruto sat alone on top of the Fourth Hokage's head of stone. He always came to this place when he needed to be alone: after all, his dream ultimately was to become Konoha's Hokage and also have his face too one day sculpted into the mountain range. This was also the place he came back to meditate after Iruka-Sensei had first given him his forehead protector...or not. Actually, thinking back, at the time he was too ecstatic a brat to even sit still and meditate, so he must have ran around yelling until it annoyed someone enough to beat the crap out of him to shut him up. But still, this was a place of beginning and hopefully of ending for Uzumaki Naruto: sealed from birth by the hands of a Hokage, he wished he could one day die a Hokage himself.

"Shidaime, Nidaime, Sandaime, Yondaime-sama...And that old hag...You've always been my goal, the bright dream that enlightened the end of the tunnel...Up till now, I've worked so hard so that maybe, one day, I too, I could bathe into that light...But why is it that now, even as I sit here for guidance, I can see nothing but darkness and hear nothing but silence?...Why won't you tell me what to do? Why won't you show me...the way anymore...?"

Notice that people often complain about not seeing the light in desperate situations. Like when the TV satellite loses its signal and that the screen goes black in the middle of a great movie. Yup, that's my kind of life crisis. By the way, sorry about all those side comments: they really killed the mood. But heck, I'm not good at melodrama. I'm better at the Macarena. Picture me dancing right now as I dodge your barrage of rotten fruits.

Maybe this wasn't the best moment to be alone. A small voice in Naruto's head told him that maybe he should go give Iruka-sensei a hand while he corrected homework and keep himself from thinking too much. Or maybe even talk with some friends: Konoha village's spirit of belonging was shared by all, and no matter if he was the demon fox child, he probably could find kindness and acceptance around him if he only reached for it. For instance, Kiba was a good listener as long as he did the talking. Shikamaru never made any mean comments, since he slept when you talked to him anyway. And Chouji would listen to you as long as you provided the food for the time it would last: also working by tradeoff was Neiji, whom would listen as long as you agreed to become his human punching bag the next day. And the Hyuuga punched hard as HELL when he tried out new moves.

Hyuuga? Naruto's mind jumped: Hinata-chan, maybe? She was a nice girl, and she always listened in those rare moments when he lost confidence. For free. For a moment, he considered looking for the little raven-haired girl...

But his bubbling blood didn't want a kind ear to appease it right now. It needed flesh and bones.

For a second maybe, a towering, deep and commanding voice also suggested to Naruto that he should just go downtown and start a brawl in a bar or something, just so he could slaughter someone. His fists tightened: more than ever, he was sharing the Kyubi's thirst for blood. Rip someone apart, he told himself. Kill, and maybe kill some more to make all this pain go away. But in the end, his tear-stained hands were the loudest when they told him that he didn't want anyone but the elder Hokages of stone to see him like this. At least to them it didn't matter. In fact, he didn't know what mattered anymore: he felt he was beyond caring.

"What was it all for...?"

His right hand started bleeding as he madly tightened his squeeze around the rose he had brought with him. His left hand was too busy clutching at his own throbbing chest. He was in so much pain right now, and yet he didn't know which thorn was hurting more.

* * *

**Author's note: So, what do you think? Let me hear any comments you may have.  
Also, since I tend to shift between humor and drama interchangeably, you might want to read a couple of chapters more before making up your mind about this story.**

**_  
The Streets - Dry Your Eyes_**


	2. Chapter 2: Linking the Past

**Chapter 2.** _Linking the Past: the Unforgotten and the Unforgiven_

Hinata was doing nothing special that morning: she was just taking care of another patient when Kiba and his un-separable Amakaru had barged in, giving her the news. Since it was an hospital, the loud Chuunin and his equally Chuunin pet had been immediately thrown out by the big muscled female nurse with Harley Davidson tattoos they usuallykeep around to handle nutcases. Or simply be there for the comic relief.

"Did he really come back?" Hinata felt her hands tremble.  
"Did he really come back after all these years...?"

* * *

"Yare yare..."  
Naruto yawned loudly as he walked slowly down through the village's square, tired from a very long journey. In front of him, Chuunins and Jounins alike were spreading out, giving him way to the Hokage's office. But even for those whom had known him well in their younger years, he was barely recognizable: even his old friends didn't dare to leap at him and kept a respectful distance. It's not that he looked particularly menacing right now: true, his torn off sleeves showed off a multitude of scars on his arms, but that wasn't unusual for a ninja who had lived through much combat. Either that or he had just been slashing himself to look cooler, but it was unlikely. Or he had just been incautious, cutting oranges with a kunai while watching TV: I can actually relate to this one. Who knew? Another thing that was noticeable was that his eyes were glowing of a strange, almost bestial yellow color, but no one really recalled his original eye color neither. But that familiar nonchalant attitude was there, now wasn't it? He wasn't dangerous, he wasn't a threat to anyone, and it was Uzumaki Naruto. He had to be. 

But something about him other than his neglected appearance had changed terribly: it wasn't even a newfound aura of power surrounding him, but more the actual lack of any detectable chakra emanating from his being. That wasn't normal: someone without chakra simply couldn't possibly be alive, and even the best Jounins were incapable of concealing their presence to this extent. In fact, Naruto seemed to lack everything, as Kiba and Neiji noted, from a particular smell to even a regular human being's chakra signature. And just to mention him, Shikamaru was at his home, sleeping and completely oblivious to Naruto's return: see? There's no character favoritism in this fanfic! Wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah. More than a man, Naruto seemed like a shadow, a phantom, undetectable by any other means than direct contact and vision: but by seeing how Naruto was now openly scratching the back of his head and yawning, it's not like he was making any real effort to conceal his presence either. He couldn't be any more conspicuous even if he tried. Well, maybe if he was singing a Teletubbies song and scratching his ass instead. Fine, scrap that last statement. Well, he wasn't a walking dead, at least that much the villagers had concluded: even in his state, his steps were unmistakably strong and resolute. The more experienced Anbus even noticed he showed no openings nor weaknesses from any angle as he tranquilly walked by, a heavy bag slung over his shoulder and his dented Konoha protector laying ever loyally on his forehead. In some strange fashion, he commanded respect and power.

He was Naruto, and yet he wasn't Naruto. That much was enough for people to keep their distance.  
"Hokage-sama will know what to do."

* * *

The first person she saw as she was coming out from the hospital was her cousin. Many years ago, Hinata would have probably hesitated asking him for help, for directions or even the time of the day for that matter, fearing the incredible bitterness of the Branch house of the Hyuuga. But after his fight with Naruto on that fateful day, Neiji had come to terms with many of his own issues. He had now accepted his own position of servitude in the hierarchy, because curse seal or not, he would always remain a proud member of the Hyuuga family. That was only a temporary situation for him, though: as far as he was concerned, once he would be done taking over the Main house, he'd lock all those that gave him a hard time in the attic with a Spice Girls CD playing at full blast. FOREVER. 

"Neiji-kun!" The young woman ran to her cousin.  
"Hinata-sama..." he responded.

Usually, when he saw her, he would be wondering if she was one of those girlies who would actually LIKE to listen to a Spice Girls CD: that question would always throw him into a deep reflection. Today however, it seemed as if he was in a state of puzzlement. That wasn't an expression one saw everyday in a user of the Byakugan, who could after all see through anything and everything! Well, not through walls. One of the general complaints the Hyuuga often had about their ability was that it couldn't be used to peek into the ladies' dressing room. That sucked.

"Neiji-kun, I heard that Naruto-kun finally came back to the village. Is it true? Did you see him?"

There was a short silence. Was he hesitating, she asked herself? Neiji was known for being a pretty blunt guy. Speaking of which, why is it that some blunt guys fare better than others in the ladies department? I mean, look at Sasuke! WHYYYY?

"Well...Yes and no. It's hard to explain. It's best if you saw for yourself, I guess. He should be with Tsunade-sama right now. I'll walk you, Hinata-sama."  
"Thank you, Neiji-kun."

And to herself, she wished one day he would stop calling her that. She never liked the idea of her own cousin being her personal bodyguard. And after all, she wasn't a member from the Main house anymore, since her father kicked her out that day she was permanently placed into Kurenai-sensei's custody. You know, that Genjutsu Jounin who got her ass handed to her by the Akatsuki. Badly. I mean come on! Even that nobody Asuma managed to land one of those tiny little scratches that almost tickle!

* * *

"Naruto...is that...you?" She asked the blond young man now standing in her office. 

By use of advanced medical seals, Tsunade looked as young as ever, even though she was now entering her sixties. She was a genius medical-nin, you see: her research even allowed her to complete the infamous breasts enlargement seal. Now if THAT isn't the discovery of the century, I don't know what is. Has anyone else ever noticed that's the only form of gratuitous fan-service there is in the Naruto universe?

"Eheh! Who else would I be, Tsunade-obasan?" Naruto winked and dropped his bag down with a thud.  
"Well, that's a load off!" He said and stretched out his shoulders.

Tsunade could only but keep silent for a moment to compose her voice.

"I can't believe you're finally back..."

She was now feeling very emotional or else she would have already slapped the runt's brains out for reminding her of her age: but, after all, she had always felt that Naruto was somewhat a reincarnation of her kid brother, whom had died a long time ago. A random guy who looked so alike to Naruto in fact it seemed his only purpose of existence was to create a sort of vague connection between Naruto and Tsunade. And then of course Kishimoto Masashi just gratuitously blew the useless little punk's brains out. Whoopee-doo. Back to the story.

"But I don't see Jiraiya with you. Did that old pervert finally kick the bucket or something?"

Naruto's facial expression suddenly darkened at the mention of Jiraiya's name.

"Actually, he did. He got killed."

There was a sudden silence. Tsunade had actually said that as a joke, but had never expected her old teammate would ever really die. Well, considering his lifestyle, maybe of liver cancer or AIDS, but not the more violent death. No, not with his power.

"Oh...What...happened?" She felt her voice falter.

Naruto again scratched the back of his head. Let's just say he did that whenever he felt uncomfortable, okay? A bit like how some of you scratch your own ass when you...Why the heck does it always come back to this? Anyway, Naruto had had plenty of time to cope with his mentor's death since it happened quite a while ago, but he still felt uncomfortable remembering it. And he also somewhat felt guilty for it.

"The Akatsuki got him. Well actually, Uchiha Itachi got him. That guy, he's such a damn monster, I'm lucky to have survived at all...I only fought him for a moment, but...I had never been so scared in my life! He's not even a big man, but he moved so fast...And...And he wore this really gay cloak! That was SO disturbing! I couldn't even LOOK at...!"

"You were with Jiraiya and you two together couldn't even defeat Itachi?.!"

"No, no! We were ambushed! We were somewhere on our way between Hidden Flame and Hidden Sand countries when Itachi suddenly jumped on us with two other guys! ...Well actually, Old Senin found out we were being followed, so we used the element of surprise and got the jump on them instead! But since they were 3 Akatsuki members, they reacted in time and it didn't worked! So Jiraiya said we had to retreat! But then one of the bad guys placed some sort of Genjutsu on us and we were trapped! Then Itachi tried to use some weird mind-breaking thingie with his Mange Sharingan to finish us off, but we both bit our tongues and broke out of the Genjutsu! I then repelled back Itachi with one of my own original jutsus so he couldn't finish his move! Then Old Senin immediately used his Kuchiyose no Jutsu and Gama-Bunta appeared, kicking one of the bad guy's ass! But then the other nameless bad guy took revenge and kicked Jiraiya's ass! But then I used the momentum to sneak behind him and Rasengan-ned his ass! But then Itachi got annoyed and kicked everyone's ass! But then...!"

Now this whole previous paragraph sounded reaaaally annoying, right? And to think we see a lot of this nowadays. Let this be a lesson to fanfic writers out there who are even worse than I am: normal human beings have to BREATHE sometimes. And too much information in a condensed paragraph like this also sounds very bad. And when I say bad, it's ba-a-aaad. Like Kurenai...on a caffeine overdose.

Resuming the story, this earned our favorite hyperactive ninja a good slap from our favorite big-breasted Hokage. And I mean BIG-breasted. I mean, just look at her: she could make those infamous kunoichis from the Dead or Alive fighting game envious.

"Naruto, I didn't understand a single thing of what you just said. Take a big breath. Talk slowly. And tell me how Jiraiya died."

Naruto took a big breath and tried to recollect himself. Still, this wasn't exactly his favorite subject of conversation.

"...Old Jiraiya...I'm not too sure what he did. But Itachi...that guy...even Gama-Bunta was defeated in a matter of minutes, it was awful...We were really desperate, so Jiraiya decided to pull out this very strange technique he never taught me. I..I saw the whole thing, but even now I'm still completely in the dark about what happened. You see, he first did this very long combination of handseals and waited for an opening... When he spotted one , he made a mad dash for Itachi and grabbed him! At the time, I thought he had went crazy! Itachi immediately punched him in retaliation, but I guess he had been weakened by fighting off our big Toad friend, so Jiraiya didn't let go... But then..."

Naruto started violently shaking his head. Tsunade feared the worse.

"But then...! Then, they both froze for no reason! I don't understand! Amidst the action, I lost sight of them for a while after that, but when I finally got back to them after dealing with the two other Akatsukis, they were both laying on the ground. I...checked twice, no, thrice! But I couldn't detect any pulse on neither Jiraiya nor Itachi. And their bodies...well...they both had this strange mark on their stomachs, as if something went... THROUGH them...Actually, it looked a bit similar to my own mark..."

"Jiraiya did what?.? Then why didn't you do anything? Why didn't you stop him, you ungrateful brat!"

Tsunade slammed unto her desk. She was fuming. More furious than a woman finding out another woman wore the same dress at a cocktail party. But seemingly, she wasn't pointing her hatred at Naruto: she didn't seem to look at Naruto as much as she was THROUGH him. What made her so angry was Jiraiya's own decision to go kamikaze on Itachi. And he didn't even have to use a suicide jet fighter to do so.

She recognized that jutsu simply from the description. Well, at the most, she had vaguely heard about it. What was it called? Fuuin Jutsu Shiki Fuujin? That was one of the most forbidden techniques the Fourth Hokage had created, wasn't it? She had never really seen it herself, but from what Jiraiya told her, the soul-eating demon the jutsu conjured would absorb any surrounding life forms it was placed in close contact with, including, ultimately, the summoner's. And as she knew Jiraiya, the old idiot probably loved life too much to even think of using it unless he had a damn good reason. Was protecting Naruto worth his life?

Naruto? As she came out from her train of thought, she realized she was now holding Naruto by the collar, and he wasn't even offering resistance. He just kept on sadly shaking his head, blaming himself and overall feeling miserable. Little did he knew he couldn't have done anything. Because he just simply didn't know.

"I didn't know what was happening, Tsunade-obasan...I swear I didn't know...I'm so sorry..."

Tsunade's traits softened, as well as her grip on Naruto's collar..

"No, Naruto...It wasn't your fault...You couldn't have done anything, that jutsu Jiraiya used...well, you'll understand someday...But it wasn't your fault, Naruto. It was Jiraiya's own decision to protect you."

She leaned in to hug him. But then suddenly realizing Naruto's current hormone-charged age, as well as most...physical implications of a hug, she decided against it. It was a sad day for Naruto.

"You're right, you know...When the Akatsuki attacked us, it was more like old Senin was defending me, not the other way around...haha, Jiraiya was actually a pretty great man like he said, even if I just didn't believe him at first when we met...but that old guy, he was also such a crazy fellow, dragging me through all that booze and all those women over the years...wait...no wait, you didn't hear that! Jiraiya was a great man -forget the previous sentence- a great man I say! Even though he knew he couldn't win, he pulled Itachi, the strongest of the trio, apart from the 2 others and that's what gave me a fighting chance. Even though Jiraiya was outmatched and took hit after hit as he stalled Itachi, that bought me enough time to bring down both my opponents...well, it was still too late, though...I swear I tried my best, Tsunade-obasan! But I really had my hands full fighting 2 Akatsuki members at once, and...!"

Tsunade wanted to grab Naruto again by the collar: not to yell at just how incompetent he was for not being capable of protecting his own mentor, but more because his self-pity was getting really annoying. I mean, he's in the middle of his twenties, for God's sake! And still whining like a wimpy little...

Then she suddenly realized what Naruto had implied: the Akatsuki was composed uniquely of A-Class and S-Class criminals. Fighting off two members of the Akatsuki at the same time , that's at least 2 A-Class ninjas at once. And even living to tell about it, that was probably the scary part. It kicked TOO MUCH ass.

"Naruto... just how strong are you?"

That question was pretty blunt, and it was so out of place that it took Naruto by surprise. Well, it's not like he often got the chance to brag about the mad mad ninja skillz he acquired over the years, but he still decided to give a reserved answer.

"I'm pretty strong, I guess. Why do you ask?"  
"Naruto, most members of the Akatsuki can easily handle 2 or 3 average Jounins each. And you're telling me you've actually knocked out 2 of them by yourself?"  
"...Well, uh...actually, I've ended up killing them. It's not exactly in my nindo to kill people, but they were really giving me a hard time, so I couldn't hold back. Look, it's not that I'm a cruel son of a..."  
"Naruto, you're evading the point. Or no, you're simply being whiny. Be quiet for a second."

Naruto opened his mouth to protest, but decided against it. He only remembered too well just how strong Tsunade was, even at her age. It's not like he wasn't confident about his own skills either, but it was in his nindo not to hit back women. Or eat broccoli. Or getting tricked into running around Konoha village with his own heart-printed boxers on his head. That's one fucked up nindo, if you ask me. It didn't however hinder the fact that it only took Tsunade about 6.427 seconds to decide that Naruto in his current state would be a nice addition to the Leaf's Jounin team. A superb addition.

You see, the Jounin level had really went down recently, since many of the good Jounins had been killed in the latest Orochimaru raid. Well, our favorite Jounins were fine, since they rocked way too hard to die now. During the attack, Gai had opened all of his inner gates and quickly disposed of his opponents at full power, but unfortunately got knocked out in his pursuit of Orochimaru, whom violently slammed a metal gatedoor in his face. He had to attend several sessions of reconstructive nose surgery by Tsunade after that: it was very ironic, but overall he was relatively unharmed. Asuma did fine during the fighting too, inflicting annoying little scratches on his opponents and then running away, giggling like a schoolgirl: he managed to break a leg by tripping on a rock AFTER the fighting ended, but other than that he was all good and kicking (one leg only). Kakashi, the best of them, didn't even get a single scratch through the whole ordeal, but that was because he was 3 hours late showing up to the fight. And even though she sucked, Kurenai had survived too: but by the sole reasons of sheer dumb luck and providential constipation. The thing is that during the raid, she had been straining on the toilet and reading her monthly edition of _Kunoichi Today_, completely oblivious to the fighting outside the whole time it lasted: just imagine her face when she finally came out of the bathroom and saw all the dead people laying around. And the sad thing in all of this is that considering her skill level, she probably would have ended up on the body count list if she hadn't been taking a shit instead of bravely fending off the village attackers like any self-respecting Jounin should have. The world is an unfair place.

To resume the whole anecdote, it all first started when Orochimaru hatched an elaborate and clever plan which involved disguising himself and his lackeys as Santa Clauses to unconspicuously infiltrate Konoha village in the middle of a bright summer day: but as I'm sure that doesn't interest anyone, that said, let's move on with our story. The Jounin situation in Konoha was now so bad that you only needed to be able to count up to 10 to get into the Jounins. And even then, most people couldn't get it right since that wasn't taught at the Academy. Eh, this is becoming a really long paragraph...All right, let's just say that right now, Konoha needed someone strong like Naruto.

Tsunade gasped in sudden realization: but knowing Naruto's level of intellect, he might very well fail the current sorry excuse of a Jounin exam too! And there were no grade curves!

"I've decided, Naruto. I'm gonna give you a special permission to join the Leaf Jounins."

That brightened Naruto's mood considerably.

"A J...A Jounin! Me? Wow! But...uh, obasan, I'm not even a Chuunin yet. Well, it's not that I really mind, but I like earning what I get, so I thought I'd better first take..."  
"Naruto, I'm sure you're waaaaaay beyond that level right now. It's okay, I can bend some rules for you."

Eh, after all, she was the Hokage: she was the village's pillar. More importantly, the village's WILL. She could finger-flick in the forehead anyone who didn't offer support to her ideas and send them flying to the moon. And no one could say anything about it: being the Hokage was the good life. Naruto thought about it for a while.

"Bah, Tsunade-obasan...I don't know. I thought that if you didn't mind, I'd just stay in Konoha for a while. But after dealing with my nostalgia, I'd just hit the road again. I never intended to stay very long."

Crap. That, Tsunade didn't count on. But an elder woman always got what she wanted with her secret weapon: making people feel guilty.

"You want to leave that badly? You know a ninja's duty is to protect his own village, don't you? Has your travels weakened your own link with Konoha Village that much?"

Naruto scratched his head. Yes, again. What do you people want? We could make him pick his nose too for variation, but that would be plain rude.

"It's not that...I just...Well, if the Akatsuki came after me again, even if they lost Itachi, they're still pretty dangerous. I don't want to endanger anyone else, so it's always better if I don't stay at one place too long. Well, and to tell the truth, I've also taken taste to traveling. You get to see a lot of different places and cultures."

He smiled. Tsunade was looking in disbelief: that expression on the young man's face was simply too familiar. He might just as well have said something like 'you wouldn't believe how all the brothels are like out there. '

"Why is it that my woman's intuition tells me Jiraiya had had some form of...nasty influence on you?"  
"Of course not. He just taught me to be broad-minded." Naruto shrugged.

And probably the Touton no Jutsu, Tsunade added mentally to his words. She sighed: no use discussing this any further, if Naruto had become as evasive as Jiraiya was. Fine, it was time for her OTHER secret weapon: making Naruto feel like an ungrateful jackass. Basically, it's the same thing as making him feel guilty, but on another level of self ass-loathing.

"You really think Jiraiya would have wanted you wandering the world for the rest of your life? You think that's why he gave his life for you?"

Naruto grimaced. Ouch.

"I think he would have loved seeing you settling down, if that was ever possible. And personally, I'm very interested..." She smiled sadly "...In seeing the limits of what Jiraiya's last pupil can do."

There was a silence. Then it earned her the corniest thumbs up and the foxiest grin to date.

"Eheh...But of course!"

Jackpot. As long as it didn't involve gambling, Tsunade always got what she wanted.

"Okay, Naruto. You're dismissed for now. Come back here tomorrow morning."  
"Sure thing, sure thing..."

Naruto picked his bag and started walking out when he suddenly froze as if he remembered something important.

"Oh! I almost forgot, obasan. I have something for you."

Naruto bent down and opened up his bag, from which he retrieved a crooked but strangely familiar piece of metal. As he placed it on Tsunade's desk, she recognized it immediately.

"That's...Jiraiya's head protector."  
"I thought of all people, you might want to keep it as a memento or something. That's all I could manage to bring with me after I buried him myself. Again, I'm very sorry, obasan, that I couldn't protect him. I'll take my leave now."

Naruto took a respectful bow and walked out, leaving Tsunade to her own emotions.

...Well to be perfectly honest, he just didn't have the heart to tell her the old man had also left him his trusty telescope and the last edition of _Come Come Paradise_ he ever wrote. Which, by the way, featured a guest appearance of Tsunade herself in a thong. Naruto shuddered: if she ever happened to see that, she would probably undertake a trip to Jiraiya's grave herself to spit on it and desecrate it in any possible way. Nah, it wouldn't be right for the old man: Naruto owed him at least that much. The young blond man would be keeping that neat book to himself, and not to his greatest dismay either.

* * *

"Hokage-sama...ano...may I come in?" Hinata peeked sheepishly into Tsunade's office. 

It was quite a sight, actually, seeing Tsunade slumped into her chair with a blank expression on her face. Realizing she had another guest, Tsunade quickly placed an arm over her eyes. Hinata for a moment felt as if she was intruding. Had Tsunade-sama been...crying?

"Hinata...I'm busy right now, could you pass by later?"

Tsunade at the moment seemed anything but busy. Hinata couldn't help but notice the female Hokage was holding a peculiar piece of metal in her hand. She decided however not to question the matter further.

"Ano, Hokage-sama...I was just wondering if...ah, I heard Naruto-kun was here, so..."  
"Naruto just left 15 minutes ago."  
"A...Arigatou." The shy girl bowed down deeply. But Tsunade-sama was acting so strangely...  
"Are you feeling okay, Hokage-sama? You look...a bit pale."  
"I'm fine, Hinata-chan." She forced a painfully obvious fake smile.  
"I need some time to think right now."

Hinata bowed down again and took her leave.Silence filled the little office again. The old woman smiled a bit: that girl lacked confidence in her own abilities, but her kindness was unmistakable. That was a very good personality trait for a prospective medical-nin: not to mention that the Byakugan sure had its uses during emergency surgeries. Tsunade chuckled: Hinata might even end up doing better than herself as a medical-nin. But even Tsunade, the best of the best, had felt time and time again the limits of her knowledge. She cursed at her own feelings of helplessness. She really hoped she wouldn't have to feel this way again.

Never again.

"That old fool..." She clutched tightly at the forehead protector she had been holding unto, and she felt her own vision blur.

* * *

"Was he in there?" Neiji asked Hinata as she came out. 

He had been waiting at the entrance faithfully as a good bodyguard should. Well, in truth, he was actually quite scared of the Hokage and just wanted to keep his distance unless contact was absolutely necessary. But then again, Tsunade was a woman to be feared, and no man who wasn't either demon fox child or gambler was terribly afraid of her. Neiji was neither, so don't blame the poor guy for wussing out. Hinata shook her head at Neiji's question.

"No...I was told he just left." She thought for a bit. "He probably headed for his old home."

"You think so?" Neiji raised an eyebrow. "I don't think there's much for him to return to at the old dump. Considering what kind of guy he is, my guess would be that he went out for ramen."  
"No, I think he went home. Considering this is his first time back in the village in years, he probably feels very nostalgic, so he would want to see places that were important to him. Besides, it's also way past suppertime now. I'm pretty sure he headed home."

She began walking in said direction. Neiji just raised his shoulders.

"I don't know, I still think he went out for ramen..." He then followed after her.

* * *

Wait a minute, that's character favoritism! Uh, did I mention Shikamaru was still home sleeping?

* * *

"THAT WAS AN AWESOME BOWL OF RAMEN!" Naruto exclaimed after being done slurping down his soup. "GET ME ANOTHER ONE, IRUKA-SENSEI!"  
"Naruto...even at that age, you're still broke?"  
"Aw come on, Iruka-sensei! I've been wandering out there for years, enduring hunger and poverty!"  
"Well...Didn't Jiraiya-sama get any form of income from...well, you know...selling his books?"  
"The old pervert always made us blow everything on geishas the moment we even got the money!" 

One of Iruka's eyebrow shot up.

"...Made...us?"  
"Well yeah! We were screwed up financially anyway, so I just told myself what the heck, I might as well rake in my money's worth. Right? Right?"

There was a nothing but silence as a gust of wind blew by. And those cricket sounds that always come from nowhere to well rub it all in.

"Eh, stop looking at me like I was some big pervert, Iruka-Sensei! I'm 24 so it was all perfectly legal!"

The middle-aged Iruka sighed and bought Naruto his next bowl of ramen. Well, he was happy to see his little friend again, although there were obviously certain traits that had taken a plunge for the worse. To think Naruto used to be such a nice little kid, he thought. Other than that, everything was as it was in the old days, except that they were now both older and that Naruto's appetite had expanded tenfold.

As a bit of background on the ramen shop, it's probably important to mention it almost went bankrupt during the 8 years Naruto, their very best customer, wasn't around to get his daily ration. How about that, uh? Free information. And from that you can even pull an obvious conclusion: the guy LIVED on ramen.

Iruka's attention moved to Naruto's head protector, which the young man had placed aside on the bar before eating. That was the gift that he himself had given Naruto when the boy had first unexpectedly graduated. The large and deep dents it now bore however sent shivers down his spine: he didn't even want to imagine what Naruto had been through in those years of absence.

"Your forehead protector saved my life more than once, you know."

Iruka looked up to a grinning Naruto, who had caught his gaze. Iruka's eyesthen rose to Naruto's naked forehead, which was the other thing he had been aching to ask the young man about.

"You're looking at this, right?" Naruto said, passing his fingers over his forehead.

Iruka nodded and followed the movement: it seemed to him the strange symbol glowed softly for a moment after the brief contact with its bearer's touch.

But...There was just something very creepy about the foreign and roughly triangular seal that was now imprinted on Naruto's forehead. And as you can imagine, it probably wasn't very esthetic if the poor guy had to usually conceal it under a big metal plate. And no matter how many years have passed, chicks STILL didn't dig whiskers.

"It was an idea of old Jiraiya, as we started traveling. He figured that since all Akatsuki's members were very skilled at detecting chakra signatures, we should both seal off our own chakras in order to give ourselves a better chance of escaping them. As you probably noticed, I don't emanate any chakra right now: it's a bit creepy to other people, but believe me, it can be quite useful sometimes. Anyway, while we were at it, Jiraiya decided to create this experimental 3-part seal in order to also help me gain better chakra control."

Naruto placed a finger on his forehead, passing it through each part of the seal slowly as he kept on explaining its functions.

"I probably should skip the elaborate signification of each of the symbols, since I'm not sure to really understand myself. Well basically, from what the old man told me, this seal has three parts, or levels, which I can each liberate at will. The first level gives me access to my own chakra. It's grown a lot over the years, so most of the time, I only need to activate this basic level. In more dangerous battles however, I allow myself to activate the second level of the seal, which again seals off my natural chakra and dives into the Kyubi's reserve, which is at the same time more potent and malevolent. Well, basically, I only unseal this one when I need to actually kill my target, since old Nine-Tails doesn't like unfinished business. It was a sort of a contract I made with him, you might say: any time he lends me his full power, I am not allowed to seal him back before he actually kills something or someone."

Iruka felt the cold sweat trickling down his neck. He had never heard Naruto talk about killing before, and now that he did, Iruka wasn't sure to like the fact that the young man acted as if it was perfectly okay to do so. Even though he was a fairly competent Jounin now (being one of the only people in the village capable of counting to 10), Iruka was still first and foremost a peaceful ninja teacher. His main function remaining the education of future shinobis at the Academy, death was still something he didn't flirt with very much. Detecting his former teacher's uneasiness, Naruto decided to cut short his explanation.

"You can probably guess what the last level does, although Jiraiya has forbidden me to use it."

He concluded by putting back his forehead protector into place. Iruka digested the information while Naruto continued slurping his meal in a loud and disgusting manner. How he had talked and eaten at the same time remains a mystery. But we do know one thing: if anyone had made him laugh at the moment, the ramen would have probably shot out his nose. That's not a pretty picture.

"That's...brilliant..." Iruka finally said. "It gives you complete access and control over both your chakras, and finally you can call the Kyubi at will without having to become unstable emotionally first...That's just brilliant."  
"It has its uses, I guess." Naruto laughed, not eating at the same time so it wouldn't shoot out his nose.

"I'd really like to see just how much you've improved, Naruto. Oh, I heard about the next Jounin exam! You're going to test, right?...Uh, and you DO know how to count to 10, right?"  
"I don't even need to test! Tsunade-obasan gave me a special entry to the Jounins for some reason! It's a real shame, you know Iruka-sensei? I'm missing a golden opportunity to show off!"

Iruka smiled: well, at least at heart, the boy hadn't changed much. He was still very easy-going. But Iruka didn't doubt Naruto's current ability even for a second and he mentally agreed that Konoha village really needed Jounins like him right now.Apart from the Hokage, there was maybe only one other particularly outstanding shinobi right now in Konoha.

That's when it all came back to Iruka.

"By the way, Naruto: I thought you should know about this. During the time you were gone, Uchiha made it as captain of the Anbu squad and then quickly escalated to Jounin. Just a year ago, he was officially recognized as the #1 Jounin of Konoha Village. He also got the title of 'Sexiest Man Alive' by People Magazine, but you probably don't care about that. Oh, I heard he recently got married to Yamanaka..."

Wow. Well what did you know: surprise could also make you shoot out ramen by your nose. There's probably a deep message or morality in all of this.

"Oh...I see...So he's already...there, uh..." Naruto said, his mood darkening.

The fact that his face was full of broth and that he had ramen sticking out his nostrils probably took out some of the drama, though.

"But Naruto...You said something very disturbing to me on that night you left, 8 years ago...I can still remember. To tell the truth, it scared me a bit: I just couldn't imagine someone like you thinking like that. I can't stop you, so I really hoped that time could resolve your differences with Uchiha and that you would be able to get over it all one day...But...Naruto, do you still intend to...?"  
Naruto was now getting up from his seat.  
"Of course! That's my nindo! When I swear to do something, I'll do it without fail!"  
Naruto gave his ex-sensei his trademark thumbs up and grin. But Iruka didn't miss the fact that this time his eyes glowed of a disturbingly violent yellow.

"I will KILL Uchiha Sasuke."

* * *

**Author's note: For all the Kurenai fans out there, sorry about all the bashing. It's not like I really dislike her or anything, but it's just that for some reason she turned into a running gag. Well, kind of like Itachi, actually. These kinds of things just happen. I'm also sorry for some of the more perverted humor: I hope it's not all in bad taste.**

**(Note: and then later on of course, I realized there were almost NO Kurenai fans in the world, so it's all good!)**

**You might have noticed but I usually leave the title of a song at the end of the chapters. These AREN'T theme songs: rather, it's the kind of music I listened to while writing the corresponding chapter. They usually represent the mood that I was trying to capture on paper while writing. Is it useless? Why, absolutely! But seriously though, I saw some comics do this and thought it was a neat way to communicate an author's state of mind.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of these songs nor do I encourage getting them illegally. Like I can talk, though...**

**_SR71 - Goodbye_**


	3. Chapter 3: Drown

**Chapter 3.** _Drown: A Caring Friend_

What woke him up that morning was a terrible, terrible headache. Probably some of us would call that the familiar feeling of a hangover. Naruto groaned and buried his face deep into the pillow, trying to get back to sleep. But it was all in vain, as even after settling himself back as comfortably as he could, he couldn't mentally shut down mental signals of pain. He sighed. And that's when his nose got a whiff of something he wasn't used to.

He didn't know why he was so sure of it, but that pillow had unmistakably the scent of a woman. That was more than enough to make him shoot up in bed in a blind panic. You see, he had gotten so drunk the last night that he couldn't really remember anything that would lead to his present predicament: all he knew was that right now, he wasn't in his room and that it wasn't a good thing. Naruto swallowed hard as several possible scenarios flashed through his mind: in all likeliness, a naughty girl had brought him to her home last night for some cheap fun while he was under influence. Eh, it could happen: that's one of those rare cases where middle-aged men and horny schoolgirls thought alike. In Konoha Village at least.

Yes, it WAS only plain little old Naruto we're talking about here: as the author, I haven't forgotten that. And I agree it might seem very out-of- place for someone like him to get some 'action' of the type. But after browsing a bit around the Naruto fanfics section, take a while just to consider WHAT the apparent straight/gay ratio in Konoha Village was. Not a pretty picture, uh? You can probably get a pretty good idea considering that by process of elimination, Ramen Fox-Boy here could overall STILL be considered a pretty good catch to the average Konoha kunoichi. Yup, Konoha Village was indeed in a pretty sad state of affairs right now, as it was currently faced with both the problems of procreation deficiency and the one of near-future extinction. AND not helping to re-mediate the situation was the fact that certain clans in the village (which we won't name) still placed their young male offspring through a trial of...'prestige' before allowing them to bear their respective clan's name: as you can imagine, that chopped away (literally) a good percentage of potential straight males before they even reached adulthood. Needless to say, the Hidden Leaf now firmly stood undefeated in the top ten list of dumbest, STUPIDEST crisises EVER faced by a country in the history of mankind. Man, they were screwed.

But back to Naruto and his current problems. All in all, he was just a regular young man himself, so he didn't go worrying about worst-cases scenarios like getting infected with AIDS or simply being on the verge of getting killed by some girl's overprotective father. Instead, the first thing that jumped into his mind was what came most naturally to all guys:  
"Oh crap! I hope she wasn't an ugly girl!"  
But then he suddenly remembered he was in Konoha Village.  
"...OH CRAP! And here I am worrying that it was a GIRL?.?"

Naruto quickly scouted his surroundings, and noticed with a certain degree of relief that he was in what seemed like a female's room. He couldn't be sure, actually, but he preferred it THAT way. The decoration probably gave him a good idea about her nature, too: the pink wallpaper, the medical books neatly aligned on their shelves, and all those plush bears laying around...His tension vanished when he suddenly realized he knew exactly where he was: this hadn't been the first time he had woken up in here, after all. Usually, when he trained really hard...The sound of her soft breathing suddenly brought to his attention that she was currently there in the room as well: by the side of the bed, sitting in a straw chair, he could see her petite form huddled up in a blanket. But even as she slept there peacefully, her head gently tilted on the side, the concern on her delicate traits was unmistakable. She almost looked sad whenever he saw her like this. Naruto wondered if she had ever looked serene in her sleep, and decided she did...when he wasn't there.

It had all made sense to him, somehow: first, that splitting headache...and then finding himself at his friend Hinata-chan's house.

"She must have picked me off the streets yesterday night while I was really drunk..."

He didn't really quite understand why the little girl had always been so genuinely concerned about him, but he felt quite grateful to her for bringing him here for shelter. After all, he could have caught cold if he had been left laying outside in the streets like an homeless Arts major. And who the hell knew where else he could have ended up instead if good -intentioned Hyuuga Hinata hadn't found him first? By the way, let's not even GO there: I'm already disgusted enough. Tough luck, girls.

By the way, just to clear certain things up, let us remember Naruto was in that age where alcohol started to become a forbidden yet very accessible attraction. But do you want to know why there were no police officers in Konoha village to bust him up although he was still underage? Simply, there WAS no police system in place at Konoha Village: ninjas fended off for themselves and looked out for each other, see? They were all united together in a touching example of solidarity, trust and belonging. Well, that was the THEORY: a mere...idealism. But in practice, that kind of thinking also turned out to be very impractical for certain things: for instance, it was a real PAIN in the ass to keep any sort of rules running around in the darn place. Who the heck would be enforcing laws anyway if every single person in the Village was a delinquent ninja? Who the hell would keep everyone in line if the Hokage herself was an infamous compulsive gambler and that all Jounins were frankly just as irresponsible as Genins were? Kakashi was just as susceptible as Kiba to pull off immature pranks like setting dog crap on fire in someone's doorway: corruption, just as gayness and idiocy, were ever-present plagues for the Hidden Leaf. Anyway, all this and some more lead to the controversial problem of drinking amongst teenage ninjas, an issue which wasn't addressed very much since it ranked pretty low in the list of the village's priorities.

To give you a bit of background, it's not that Konoha village didn't look down on underage drinking: it did, but by now you'd know it was just completely and utterly powerless to do anything about it. You see, the village Council had tried setting up alcohol prohibition in the past, but as most prohibitions the law backfired so badly that they had to repel it soon afterwards, before things REALLY got out of control. Just to give you an idea, about 2 days after the Council had issued the law, the Ninja Academy switched the standard Taijutsu they taught to the Drunken Fist, since everyone had become too wasted to teach OR learn anything else. The situation was bad enough, but the Council still tried to keep their law going on a bit after that, although ultimately the prohibition lasted for 3 days and a fourth. The last straw was probably when a young and very drunk Itachi drove the family car through the garage door, the village's walls and finally into the neighboring lake, killing both his parents in a freak accident. Itachi himself had somehow survived however, ironically because he didn't click on his safety belt: he had been ejected through the windshield after the initial impact, which saved him from drowning in the car after it exploded for some reason. Yes, even if it went into the lake. To the Japanese, anything can explode for no particular reason, from cars and big bad mobile suits to simple human beings and apple pies. EVERYTHING. Seriously, considering how many mangakas made Tokyo blow up in their stories, you'd think the capital was made of the most flammable substance known to man. It's become like a good running gag to the people of Japan. By the way, if you go to Tokyo, you've NEVER heard that from me.

Anyway, although he survived, the shock gave Itachi massive brain damage, and for some reason after that he felt like killing an insane amount of people. Sasuke survived too, because he hadn't even been in the car to start with: like other kids of his age at that time, he had been plastered in his seat at the Academy, drooling on his desk and too wasted to even think. Even now, Sasuke can't really tell apart reality and alcohol-induced hallucinations when he tries to remember his parent's deaths: but as an Uchiha, he's way too cool to admit to that, right? He had an image to maintain. So he went on believing all his life he walked on Itachi as the older Uchiha towered bitterly over their parents' dead bodies, after cold- bloodedly murdering them for taking away his virility: and that image became Sasuke's truth, and everyone else's since no one bothered to remember what really happened. Well, Kakashi knew, but he calculated that if he kept his mouth shut about it, he could get himself a Sharingan at discount price. Son of a gun, eh? Anyway, the made-up story held together just fine and no one really cared about the truth, so the Council covered it all up and made Sasuke's version the true story: besides, it was also really convenient to explain Itachi's disappearance which followed soon after. But it's all a conspiracy, I tell you! Just like how they faked Hayate's death, whom was actually captured by anal-probing aliens. No, really. Fine, don't believe me.

Well, it was after that incident that the Village Council decided that enough was enough and repelled the prohibition: everything then soon went back to normal. Almost. You see, it had only taken a few seconds but the Uchiha clan had been technically wiped out...Even though there WERE Sasuke and Itachi left and that the clan had been composed of ONLY 4 family members to start with: but "wiped out clan" is SUCH a tearjerker. Well, Itachi was also gone from the village and Sasuke transformed into the uptight little fellow we now knew, but other than that, everything essentially remained the same. The ONLY other thing that came out of this incident was Rock Lee's unexpected mastery of the Suiken: since he had been the only kid around pure and innocent enough not to follow the drinking fad, he was also the only one who could clearly remember what the class had been taught at that time. It paid to be a hardworking student sometimes. Well, sometimes.

But I talk and talk, and we're not progressing with our story. Where the heck were we anyway?  
Okay, so Naruto drank, but it's not like he was particularly tolerant to alcohol either: in fact, he wasn't. As far as alcohol went, he was a real wimp and a small bottle of sake was more than enough to knock him out: but still, kids, don't go try and test your own alcohol tolerance with a beer pack right now, okay? This is just a fictional story. Eh, I meant that. Eh eh HEY! GIT BACK 'ERE. Even though this is just a really amoral fic, try to at least learn something from all this! Look at Itachi for instance, and you just KNOW where you'll end up in life unless you're both a rational AND sexy drinker. Geez, kids today...Anyway, the point was that Naruto would never drink a lot unless something very out of the ordinary happened. Except for drinking contests that is: he was too proud and too stubborn to turn any challengers down, after all. Actually, when Naruto thought about what could have happened last night, that was the first possible conclusion that had come to his mind. Most likely, he collapsed somewhere in the streets yesterday night after a wild time at the bar, and Hinata-chan must have picked him up after tripping over his lifeless body as she was walking home. Why make her trip on him, you ask? Because tripping someone is still one of the oldest and funniest gags in the book: seriously, when you see someone slipping and falling down the stairs, do you first consider that to be funny or depressing? Be honest. And frankly, there just weren't any banana peels around to play with.

The headache hit Naruto again, making him cringe in pain: maybe it was simply better if he didn't think too much right now. His own thoughts were in a real blur anyway: the best course of action would be to ask Hinata- chan herself what happened later, when she woke up. With that in mind, Naruto slowly pulled himself up into a more comfortable sitting position...and suddenly grimaced as his right hand made contact with the soft fabric of a blanket. So it wasn't just a hangover: his hand stung like hell too. Bringing it to eye level, he was amazed to see his right hand completely bandaged up in clean white wraps.

"My hand...? Hinata-chan...Did she do this...?"

He took a better look at himself: much of his body actually was bandaged up, from his torso down to his ankle. Then, the top of his head also felt uncomfortable for some reason, and he reached for it: the realization it was also wrapped up acted almost like a trigger to his memories. His mind started racing as yesterday pieced itself back together, and he almost gasped when he saw something very familiar resting on the counter beside him. His hand automatically reached for it, but on the contact of his fingertips the faded rose seemed to come apart by itself. It could only be beautiful for so long, after all. Soon there was nothing left of the plant but a mess of dark, dry crimson petals.

"Tears...of blood." Naruto simply whispered.

* * *

She had been quite relieved to find the bed empty when she finally woke up, but she sighed anyway. It was a good sign that Naruto-kun probably felt good enough to walk out of his own, but still, why did he always left like this...? Hinata wished he could say thank you, sometimes. Well, it's not like she particularly enjoyed scares like the one she was given yesterday, but Hinata was always glad to be given a chance to help Naruto-kun out whenever he needed it. But lately, his erratic behavior had really been starting to worry her...You see, it wasn't the first time Naruto had come to her hurt in some way: more and more, she had seen him collapse of exhaustion after stubbornly training deep into the night. His desperation to grow stronger had become greater than even his body could handle. Right now, Hinata- chan's greatest fear was that one day he would push himself to such an irreparable state that even HE wouldn't be able to wake up afterwards. Kiba- kun had tried reassuring her, telling her Naruto was just as stupid as he was resilient, laughing the matter off, but Hinata couldn't laugh. Because she knew Naruto more than anyone. 

She knew how he trained incredibly hard, day after day, shrugging off bruises and pain like details and getting back up until his own mind blanked out and his own body collapsed of exhaustion. That much, everyone knew. But she was the only one whom he had actually confessed his own feelings of weakness to: she was the only one who knew even Naruto could sometimes lose confidence. Hinata-chan knew of his growing despair to ever get any stronger, as more and more he kept giving in to the feeling that he had already reached the limits of his potential. She knew how his pride was slowly dying as every single one of his friends eventually surpassed him. And knowing all this broke her heart.

Because if Naruto, her shooting star of dedication and perseverance, eventually burned out, she wouldn't know what to believe in anymore. There wouldn't be anyone left for her to believe in.

Of all people his age, Hinata probably knew best of Naruto's strange healing abilities, having by now witnessed it many times. In fact, she couldn't even flatter herself into thinking that she was taking care of him, most of the time when he was laying unconscious like this: all she did was bring him somewhere safe so he could rest, and he would do practically all the healing by himself. With this kind of power, Naruto could even seem almost immortal to some people, but Hinata knew better: she knew that if he got wounded badly enough in fatal areas, he was just as vulnerable to death as any other ninja in the village. It had never appeared so clear to her as yesterday night, when she opened her door and saw both Kiba-kun and Shino- kun standing there on her porch, carrying an unconscious Naruto with them like a dead weight. That picture had haunted her dreams the whole night: a badly bruised Naruto hanging between life and death, with deep cuts all over his body, an open wound to the head, and practically throwing up blood in his own filth...In a blind panic, she had recalled applying first-aid to him as best she could, but was still worried enough for his life to watch over him as he slept. She cared for him so deeply she only fell asleep herself at around 5 in the morning, when his erratic breathing and pulse had come back to normal...

And still...when she woke up, as usually, he had left before she could even say goodbye to him. And took away with him the brief warmth he brought into her life on each visit. Life wasn't fair and this certainly wasn't... BUT let's not go into some sort of a really depressing scene of Hinata feeling sorry for herself here. She's a nice girl, heck, she doesn't deserve that. Instead, let's break off the mood with a plot device like this one: Hinata suddenly heard a yell coming from the backyard.

"That voice...?" she thought to herself. And we damn knew who it was.

* * *

"Rasen...GAAAAN!" 

The blond boy finished his own Taijutsu training pattern with his strongest melee technique: his prided A-class Rasengan Jutsu. Stretching out his right arm to its full length in front of himself, he breathed inwardly and focused: soon enough, a ball of chakra gently gathered in between his fingers, quickly building up speed and power until it attained the approximate size of a tennis ball. Well, people didn't play tennis in Konoha: it's simply for the reader's reference. But rejoice, I'm not gonna go into another pointless background information paragraph just for that: more importantly, I don't feel like making any jokes about balls, if you get my drift. Anyway, it was pretty impressive, but the Rasengan only remained in that state for about 10 seconds, before it spun out of control and simply fizzled out into thin air. Breathing heavily, Naruto contemplated his own hand for a while, with a look of dissatisfaction.

"Not long enough. With this kind of amateurish chakra control, I still can't face Sasuke..."

He sighed and sat down. Well, as far as he was concerned, that was enough training for the morning: not that he was particularly tired yet, but more because after taking a while to consider the destructive nature of his training, he decided it was better he stopped now before Hinata's backyard took on the appearance of a warzone. He was regulating his own breathing when he noticed a very surprised Hinata-chan at the window, looking at him.

"Oi, Hinata-chan! Good morning ! So you 're up, uh ?" he made a large and silly arm waving motion in her direction.  
"G...Good morning, Naruto-kun! Um, ano...what are you still doing here?"

Even though she was very happy, she was still a bit puzzled about why Naruto hadn't already left, as he usually did. Naruto just gave her a sincere smile, picking up his trademark bright orange jacket and tossing it on his shoulder before taking a step towards her.

Hinata looked even more puzzled as another great question about the Naruto universe popped into her mind: whenever he went on reconnaissance missions, now just how the HECK did Naruto pass unseen with that kind of flashy jacket? Or anyone wearing the Konoha bright green vest for that matter? It just didn't make any sense. Well, the answer to that was that most Konoha ninjas didn't fare too well in the stealth department: in fact, there WAS no such thing as stealth for them. They could be sneaky like Kakashi, squeaky like Gai, nobody like Asuma or plain sucky like Kurenai, but stealthy? HELL NO! Forget that crap about 'a ninja leaves no trace' or 'move like a shadow, bite like the wind'. Even though 'ninja' technically meant 'unseen being,' Konoha's Jounin gang was probably more adept at busting through a house's front door guerrilla-style, armed with blasting grenade launchers and blaring semi-automatics. Technically, these guys had a lot of issues and angst to deal with and just LOVED their stress- relieving action. Like the jackets they wore, Konoha ninjas were indeed loud enough to wake up the dead whenever they worked, and you better believe they left more than a single trace afterwards too: when given a mission, frankly, they simply kept on destroying everything they got their sight on until they ran out of chakra and ammo clips. Enemies, children, pets, plants, houses, the furniture IN the houses, tax collectors, cyborg terminators, firemen, hostages, Jenuvah witnesses, washed-up boys band members...OTHER Konoha ninjas...you name it. And all this was done in the most gruesome, unredeeming and more importantly, random kind of way. We previously mentioned an historical Orochimaru raid on Konoha Village, but at least those guys would use some degree of stealth when the infiltration would take place sometimes in the future . But do you even want to know what happened afterwards when Tsunade would order a very enthusiastic counter-raid on the Hidden Sound Village? Orochimaru would just be talking about the nice weather with Kabuto over a tasty cup of coffee when suddenly the gatedoor to his village would simply EXPLODE and that jeeps armed with mounted machine-guns and packed to the brim with Konoha ninjas would pour in from every direction imaginable. The following scenes of fighting, pyromania and overall insane mass destruction would be enough to put even Rambo, a guy who made his mark by running around with grenades, to shame. And to think that in the future, Konoha ninjas STILL had the nerve to call themselves 'unseen beings' even after leveling Orochimaru's village to the ground. WTF?.?

Anyway, as usual, back to the story. When he had come close enough, Hinata suddenly noticed Naruto had removed all of his bandages.

"Na...Naruto-kun...Your wounds..."  
"It's fine, Hinata-chan! Really! I'm all good to go, now!" He flexed his puny muscles to prove his point.  
"Oh, I'm glad to hear that! ...But, why are you still here then? You haven't answered my question yet..."

Naruto rose an eyebrow.

"What, you wanted me to leave?"

She clasped her mouth shut, realizing instantly she had said something she shouldn't have.

"N-no no! It's not that! It's just, that...well...you...usually, you...Well, to be honest, I didn't think you'd stay around...You usually just leave in the morning, so..." Hinata looked away.

This created an awkward silence between them. It was Naruto's turn to look away, too.

"You know, Hinata-chan...I never really thanked you for all those times you took care of me, so I wanted to tell you today. Hinata-chan...Arigatou. It means a lot to me."

That completely took her by surprise. Soon enough, she could detect the familiar feeling of warm blood creeping up her face, and her hands shot up to her cheeks in a rather futile attempt to hide it.

"Hinata-chan...your face..."  
"It...It's nothing! Na...Naruto-kun...I..."  
"Oh yeah, and also...well, I decided to take a day off, today, so...I wanted to ask you if I could treat you out to breakfast this morning."

A dead silence followed and crickets singed. Naruto kicked Jiminy Cricket who happened to be near him and quickly followed-up.

"I'm not forcing you, though! I'm just asking! You're free to refuse if you don't want to!"

Naruto turned his back to her and finished with a nervous laugh, his hand reaching for the back of his head: for a moment, he considered hightailing it out of there and cutting down his own emotional losses. It was something understandable: after all, he didn't think he could bear hearing another girl turning him down right now. No...not after what had happened between him and Sakura-chan yesterday. It really shouldn't matter to him anymore, and the only direction he could look to now was onward. But still...

Imagine Naruto's surprise when he finally looked back at Hinata: somehow, her hands had come down and she wasn't bothering to hide her blushing anymore. And even though she looked somewhat surprised, any other features of her expression simply radiated of happiness. She smiled sweetly at him and Naruto caught himself blinking twice before his mind actually registered her answer.

"I'd be glad to, Naruto-kun."

Now see that! That's how a cute and REFINED manga girl is supposed to act! Not at all like the usual laugh-out-loud "BWAHAHAHA-snort!" you usually get from the tomboyish air-headed chicks animes nowadays tend to favor! Okay, so I'm exaggerating, but you get the point. That positive reply for some reason really made Naruto's day, and he soon felt his past worries melt away. Why be sad, as long as there was someone by his side whom really cared for him? At that moment, he felt strong enough to forget just about anything else...and ready to forgive just about anyone.

"Yosh! It's a date, then! Let's go get some ramen!" He stroke an energetic pose, pointing dramatically towards his favorite ramen shop, which was also the ONLY ramen shop in Konoha Village.

You see, business competition was relatively unexistent in trigger-happy Konoha Village, and trying to make any was simply asking for trouble. No, really: the old man running the ramen shop did look kind most of the time but when it came to ramen business, he definitely wasn't someone you wanted to fuck around with. The last fool who even tried stealing customers still had his entrails decorating the ramen shop's entrance as a warning to others. AND it didn't even bother anyone coming to eat at the place: to the Konoha ninja, it was all in a day's work. Anyway, this would have been a great and enlightening day for Naruto, but as this is primarily a drama fic, he was about to make another unpleasant discovery...

"...Ano, Naruto-kun...I'm sorry, but...I'm allergic to ramen..."

Naruto's expression instantly turned into that of a deer caught into the headlights. Or, since it's in context, that expression of shock Orochimaru would have on his face before he would be run over by Gai's jeep as the Jounin yells out gleefully "Payback time, BEE-YATCH!" . For some odd reason, it's almost certain most readers would prefer the latter mental image.

Naruto, for his part, was just shaking his fist towards the sky.

"DAMN YOU, GOD! WHY MUST YOU PERPETUALLY TORTURE ME?.?"  
"Simple. What else can I do?" A voice answered from the heavens. And He went back to whatever it is He was doing.

* * *

"Hinata-chan. Tell me everything." 

"Huh?" She was taken aback by the question.

Naruto and Hinata were now at the soba stand next door, since by courtesy for his friend Naruto had decided to skip his daily attendance to the ramen shop. By the way, if you looked well enough through the background, you could notice the old guy from the ramen shop sharpening the huge-ass axe he usually kept behind the counter. Don't forget your popcorn because as soon as Naruto and Hinata left, there would be a one heck of a showdown between him and the old guy running the soba stand, over Naruto's clientele...And you didn't want to miss that for ANYTHING. Seriously, like the late Sandaime, all old men in Konoha kicked serious ass: hell was coming to town tonight and it was very, VERY angry.

"Tell me about yesterday. Since this morning, some people have been looking at me strangely, but I can't remember anything about what I did last night. So please, Hinata-chan."

She sighed: she had figured he'd ask sooner or later. But she still didn't really want to talk about this...

"Ano...I don't really know myself...You should ask Kiba-kun or Shino-kun...They..."

Naruto shook his head.

"That's not the point, Hinata-chan. I don't know if I can face anyone, right now. If from anyone at all, I want to hear it from you."

Hinata played around with her noodles for a while, uncertain of how to break the story to him. But then again, she thought, he had every right to know. It was probably better if he knew.

"Yesterday night...It was my teammates who brought you to me. Kiba-kun told me he had simply been walking Amakaru last night when he heard of a violent bar brawl, so he rushed over...Shino-kun happened to be there too...So when they managed to knock...out...the person who had started the trouble, they brought you to me. You were wounded badly, so I..."

"Hinata-chan...the person who started that brawl was me and you know it."

Hinata froze momentarily. She was starting to feel very uncomfortable.

"Tell me what they saw."  
"K...Kiba-kun saw you throwing bottles around and randomly fighting with people, so he tackled you from behind...That mark on your ankle's where Akamaru bit you...Even though someone had already broken a bottle on your head, you were still fighting in a blind rage...Shino-kun simply said he had never seen you in such a state...I...I couldn't imagine you doing that sort of stuff either! I..."  
"Please, Hinata-chan. Stick to the story."  
"...Okay...You were wounded but Kiba-kun till had to wrestle with you for about fifteen minutes...When he finally managed to hold you down, Shino-kun used one of his narcotic bugs to put you to sleep. He said that by then you had already sustained a large amount of injuries, so he had to put you out in order to have you treated. After that...After that, they apologized for your behavior to everyone...and brought you to me. I bandaged you up and took care of you for the rest of the night."

The expression of pain was now obvious on Naruto's face, when he heard that someone had to stoop down and actually apologize for him. Inuzuka Kiba was a loud guy and wasn't exactly the best living example of a thoughtful man: as for Aburame Shino, he was a real enigma but nevertheless a very upstanding ninja. But to even picture them taking that kind of damage to their own pride for Naruto's sake...Naruto thought that scum like him didn't deserve that kind of respect when he wasn't even a Chuunin himself. Why was he so weak? Why did everyone have to look after him? He felt his frustration rising.

"Dammit...DAMMIT!"

Hinata didn't like this: for the first time ever, Naruto-kun was actually...scaring her. She was very, very afraid. This wasn't like him at all and she wanted to get away.  
A long and painful silence ensued as neither of them knew what to say. But just as Hinata decided she couldn't take it anymore, Naruto just grinned at her like he usually would, instantly killing off the tension that had been building up.

"So that's what happened, uh? I shouldn't forget to thank them, then! They probably got me out of a real jam! And you too, Hinata-chan, for looking after me and all...You have such a great team! Kurenai-sensei did a good job bringing you guys together!"

Hinata spent several seconds blinking in disbelief: not because of how sudden the change in mood was, but because for the first time EVER, she had heard praise about her teacher. That was bordering on the edges of a miracle. Also, the awkwardness she had felt earlier had somewhat vanished. She managed to smile.

"You're welcome, Naruto-kun."

They both took a sip of their tea as seemingly everything went back to normal. And Hinata really hoped it wasn't only an impression, either.

"By the way, Hinata-chan, there's a favor I've meant to ask you."  
"What is it, Naruto-kun? I'd be glad to help in any way I can."  
"Can you teach me Taijutsu? You know, YOUR Taijutsu."

With these kinds of conversations, the soba stand owner never got any kind of rest. Sure, it was hilarious seeing people shoot tea out of their noses, and it was even more priceless when the victims were timid little girls you wouldn't usually expect that sort of reaction from. Yet it was SO troublesome to clean up...

But he couldn't worry about that now: he was too busy doing last-minute maintenance on his own deadly-looking spear. Furtively, he glared at the ramen shop owner. The other old man glared back. Yes indeed, crimson would soon rain and some ages-old accounts would be settled once and for all...

"N...Naruto-kun! You can't be serious! My Gentle Fist Taijutsu is a style that can only be passed within the Hyuuga bloodline, I have no right to...And...and more importantly, you can't use it if you don't have a Byakugan! It wouldn't be very effective, and..."

Naruto just looked at her, with a wildly amused look.

"Hinata-chan, you have tea all over your face."

"Oh, gomen!" She quickly wiped her face with a napkin, concealing her embarrassment..

"And that's not what I meant when I asked you to teach me Taijutsu: the Hyuuga's kind of complex Taijutsu, with all its theories about pressure points and the like probably wouldn't fit my style anyway. Look, and I'm not asking you to betray your own clan or anything either: what I was wondering is if you could teach me the basics of chakra-using Taijutsu. To give me a fighting chance against Thick-Eyebrows and Sasuke's Iron Fist styled Taijutsu, you see."

Hinata thought for a while. True, there was nothing in the Hyuuga clan rules forbidding her to do that. And it's not like castration was used as a form of punishment for disobedience in her clan either: nope, that was the guys next door's way of doing things, the Uchihas. But anyway, the chakra control required in the Hyuuga Taijutsu demanded deadly serious training from a very early age: the odds were that Naruto could never master a perfectly balanced Taijutsu if he tried to use the Gentle Fist form. But...seeing his hopeful look as he awaited for an answer, she didn't have the heart to refuse him. She wasn't sure why, but those deep, passionate blue eyes he showed her every time he was resolved to do something just made her melt...Why was she even hesitating? She had made up her mind a long time ago that she'd support him in any way she could...

"I'll do my best, Naruto-kun."

* * *

It can be argued that Fate herself is truly a whimsical Mistress. And yet, as this chapter ends, one can't help but ponder if throughout existence, as one connects with many other lives, there are truly some meetings which hold nothing of a coincidence. 

As the first drops of rain appeared in the sky, two friends stumbled out from a soba stand and quickly ran for cover.  
As a girl clumsily stumbled on her feet, a boy quickly reached out with his arms and caught her in her fall.  
And as he helped her regain her footing, their eyes akwardly met for a fleeting moment, trembling of laughter.

In the following brief moment of catharsis, for the first time ever both the boy and girl would feel all their previous sins, worries, and weaknesses dissipate into thin air. Not even the storm, omen of the much darker times that were to come, could drown out that faltering glow of life even as its pouring rain cleansed out forbidden alleys and forced the small village's inhabitants to cower into their shelters...

At the same time, two cloaked men, one armed with an axe and the other with a spear, met in the middle of the street. The first pointed towards the mountains, and the other simply nodded: without even saying a word, they both turned and silently headed for that direction, as a sakura-filled gust of wind conveniently blew by to make their cloaks trail dramatically behind them...

* * *

**Author's note: I think this was the chapter which got the most response out of readers, and I still don't really understand why. As a matter of fact, I don't know if I should find it rather alarming that people nowadays consider jeep kills completely hilarious. Oh well.**

**_Counting Crows - Round Here_**


	4. Chapter 4: Vendetta PART 1

**Author's notes: I had first planned to throw a HUGE 10000-something words chapter at you guys, but later on decided to cut it into 2 parts: what you'll be reading now is the first part of chapter 4. I should be updating the relatively short second part soon enough to wrap it all up, but only as I complete writing it. C'mon, gimme some credit here: it's hard writing this stuff while trying to stay original. You'll notice the focus has switched from Naruto to some of the other characters which hadn't had their chance in the spotlight yet...**

**(note: the chapter turned out to be 20 000 words long and took another 2 months later to complete...)**

* * *

**  
Chapter 4**. _Vendetta: The Path of Pride -PART 1_

"Is Auntie Hinata really going to be okay...?" she had asked, on the verge of tears.

Her father didn't know what to answer, so he simply did what he did best: he remained silent and looked cool while doing so. Her mother however kneeled down and hugged the little girl tightly, reassuring her as best as she could: but Ino was herself in need of courage right now. It pained her terribly to see Hinata lying in bed like this, unconscious and wired to a life-support system. After all, Hyuuga Hinata had always been a close friend of the family, and she didn't know what she would do if ever...

This was one of those things Ino simply couldn't laugh off and complete with a snort.

"Honey, Tsunade-sama did whatever she could. I'm sure...your Auntie Hinata will be fine. Right? Right, Shikamaru?" she turned to her ex-teammate for hope.

Shikamaru sighed: he had been in a coma-like sleep himself for the past few years since he had forgotten to set his alarm clock, but even then no one had cared enough to notice his missing in action. But that was beside the point: right now, he was starting to seriously regret having ever woke up. What was it with other people, dragging him out only when they had to be faced with something as depressing as this...?

"I wouldn't be worried if it was anyone else, but Hinata's medical history shows she had already sustained heavy damage to her vital organs in the past, making her more vulnerable to internal bleedings. I'm not sure just how badly she's been hurt in this incident, but it's still cause for worry. Also, that wound she's got on her arm doesn't look very good...You see, normally when you get stabbed or even ran over by a jeep, as long as it's not fatal the injury should be capable of eventually closing up by itself, or at the very least should be able to do so with the proper support. But in this case..."

"The damage is too extensive, and the shattered flesh and bones won't be able to heal naturally even after extensive surgery. This is no ordinary wound."

The room quickly fell silent as everyone turned their attention towards the raven-haired Jounin, whom by now was taking a closer look at Hinata's injuries: this was the first time he had spoken since he arrived to the hospital. Sure, it was sudden, but Sasuke never wasted any words and everyone respectfully kept quiet whenever he opened his mouth to talk or belch: Shikamaru may have been better at sizing up a situation, but when it came to insight for this kind of things the Uchiha was still the best. The best AND the sexiest: that definitely had to count for SOMETHING. Sasuke continued.

"This is one of the particularities of the _Dokugami_ (Poisonous Bite), the name of the technique that Hinata has been attacked with: it's a very deadly skill which can cause heavy damage on both the surface and the innards of anything it hits. Like the name implies, it's a actually a 2- part technique: first, the 'bite' is a clawing motion which tears right into the flesh, and the 'poison', so to speak, consists of a violent chakra release originating from that 'bite'. If we were to describe this 'poison' in simple terms, it's actually something like a destructive shockwave which resonates throughout the whole chakra body of the victim. Think of it as something similar to the _Naibu Hakai_ (Inner Explosion) of the ancient Taijutsu schools, a twist punch so explosive that the hit would be projected beyond the actual point of impact, breaking through any possible type of defense. However, the _Dokugami_ is a lot more dangerous than that in terms of damage. You see, when the claw actually penetrates the victim's flesh, it also becomes a medium to canalize energy throughout the wound's opening: it's a simple maneuver, but since there are no forms of chakra defense whatsoever within a human body, the damage of this 'poison' will multiply by several times. And unlike the _Naibu Hakai_ which can only pack up to the power of a single punch, this technique relies on the user's own indefinite amount of chakra: the damage could thus easily expand tenfold and add up to the destructive properties of, let's say, a stick of dynamite inserted into a wall of cement. This is an advanced form of Taijutsu which goes way beyond the level of Neiji's or even my own: the way I see it, it's something that fuses together principles of both the Iron and Gentle Fist styles into one instantaneous attack. And in Hinata's case, that blow and its following resonance were simply so powerful that it shocked her cognitive functions into a temporary shutdown, even though her body was hit at a relatively safe and remote place: considering that, you can probably guess the severity of the damage AT the actual point of impact, the wound at her arm. The fact that Tsunade-sama's previous surgical intervention couldn't do anything more than stop the bleeding should all tell you something: damage like this is absolutely permanent unless the patient has undergone special chakra training by which his or her molecular structure then becomes restorable at will, which, luckily enough, is Hinata's case. In other words, there's nothing more we can do for her right now other than wait for her awakening: the only person who can save her now is herself."

Immediately after he was done talking, as per habit Sasuke pulled up his sleeve and clicked on his watch, starting the chronometer: he was incapable of explaining in any simpler terms than that technician mumbo-jumbo and it usually took everyone else quite a while to even register what the heck he was talking about. After 3'53 minutes Neiji finally exhaled, showing sign of life and demonstrating he was the first in the group to grasp the concept: AND it was probably due to the fact that he was already familiar with many types of Chinese martial arts. As you can imagine, Ino and her daughter would simply sit there open-mouthed with a blank clueless look on their faces for at LEAST another 5 minutes. And as for Shikamaru, who's supposedly the smart guy here...well actually, Shikamaru would have probably understood it all instantly if he hadn't fallen ASLEEP in the middle of the explanation: he wasn't narcoleptic, but seeing him you'd think the word described him nicely enough. Time hadn't been kind to our favorite shadow-user, as his attention span had decreased even MORE with age: by now, the poor guy was totally losing his edge. Aw, dammit, this might take a while: okay, well since we've got time on our hands before Ino resumes breathing again, let's talk about Nara Shikamaru and check up on what he's been up to these days.

You see, it was one thing to be the #1 strategist of the Leaf, but since he had become Anbu captain and been assigned a group of grunts under him to kick around, Shikamaru had become lazier than ever, if that was POSSIBLE. Being a leader was quite practical in Konoha Village you see, since there was no such thing as misuse of authority: it was socially acceptable to send your minions to do your groceries or your house chores, and basically slave-drive them into doing anything you didn't feel like doing yourself. As long as you kept bringing everyone back alive after successful missions, your superiors couldn't complain, and as long as you were the one handing out the paychecks at the end of the month, neither could your underlings. Understandably, Shikamaru placed that knowledge into good use and often indulged himself into entering a vegetative and quasi-permanent state he called 'resting', which usually either consisted of himself playing Shougi or simply himself napping while his pawns had to bust their asses off to do all his housework: at this rate, he thought, he didn't even NEED a wife since his quasi-slaves did everything AND spared him the nagging. Now, it would have been fine if Shikamaru's attitude was the only thing that been affected by his promotion, but you see, oversleeping also had had some very negative effects on him. Remember this, kids: just as sleeping a lot on weekends can't make up for overall schooldays insomnia, sleeping too much could KILL your brain cells. In other words, as of late Shikamaru had really been getting out of shape both physically and mentally, and that affected the quality of the plans he came up with: just as he had gotten more lethargic, his plans had gotten, well, sloppier. Basically, what happened was that his IQ of 200-something had dropped to about 100 over the years: it was a real shame, but even sadder was the fact that he was STILL considered a genius, considering Konoha Village's subhuman intelligence standards. I mean, just take a look at the current Jounin exam and you could get a pretty good idea of your average Konoha ninja's IQ. Yes, THAT low. The Shidaime Hokage would cry in the Afterlife if he only knew how things would turn out for the brave little village he had founded with his own two hands...

Or maybe he wouldn't even care, actually. It just occurred to me, but has anyone of you ever really wondered WHY the Hidden Leaf Village was named that way? Simply put, the Shidaime had never really intended to build a ninja village in the first place: he only wanted a plantation. That's right, what the First Hokage had founded originally wasn't a village but a plantation, 'hidden' from the authorities, and where he could tranquilly grow his own brand of brain-killing hallucinogen 'leaves'. And at the time, the title 'Hokage' didn't mean being chief or protector of the Village: we only now understand it that way because the original definition had been grossly deformed as it was passed from generation to generation. But in reality you see, initially 'Hokage' was more along the terms of 'drug lord' as it simply meant owning the Hidden Leaf plantation and having the right to shoot anyone trespassing on the territory to protect what was wrongfully yours. As for the idea of Ninjutsu itself, it was only adopted after the Hokage realized he needed effective and sneaky ways to smuggle the 'goods' through the borders, a not very noble but efficient purpose nevertheless: that illegal business finally paid off so much that he decided to build a Village to accommodate the workers of his plantation, whom up until then had been living in holes like a bunch of animals. Well, these people probably didn't care all that much about getting housing, either: being a bunch of perpetually high junkies with no life, they were probably too stoned to even realize that ...Now just a damn minute...These people are the ones who would become the ancestors of everyone in the present Konoha Village, right? Hmm...You know what? It's actually quite a valid theory: looking at how the Village was nowadays, it wouldn't be surprising if it was because it already went back for 5 WHOLE generations in terms of stupidity! I think we're unto something, here.

Oh, but I digress...maybe it's just time for us to head back to our friends in the hospital room.  
...Okay, so Ino's STILL just sitting there, even though it's already been five minutes. Geez, just how thickheaded can you...? Fine, fine, I'll just keep on talking then. Where was I? Oh yeah. Shikamaru.

So lots of things had happened in Konoha Village in the past 8 years: just as for Naruto, time had moved on for everyone, and one of those peculiar changes that time had brought along was the formation of Shikamaru's Anbu unit. It's a strange but interesting little anecdote, really: you see, when Tsunade had first given Shikamaru the Anbu captain title, he had requested the freedom to personalize his own squad, a privilege which the amused female Hokage had then granted him. And that's how it all started: instead of bothering to train new recruits or use any of the veteran Anbu soldiers, Shikamaru only went fishing for human resources amongst the 12 original Genins he graduated with, since he believed there was certainly a lot of talent in that group. Well, when taking into account all the absences and exemptions from active duty, the number had actually trimmed down quite a bit: amongst others, there were the cases of Uzumaki Naruto, whom by then had already left the village with Jiraiya, Uchiha Sasuke, whom was frankly a category by himself, and finally Yamanaka Ino, whom had become the wife of the previous category. Subtracting both Naruto and Sasuke from the party did weaken it considerably, but Shikamaru went on and assembled his remaining comrades anyway: after all, knowing all of these guys' competencies as well as their personal oddities, they were still the easiest for him to work with.

This also simplified a lot of things for the lazy Nara since, possessing perfect knowledge of the skill distribution on his team, he could efficiently assign specialized roles to each of the members by sticking to a series of basics whenever he planned out missions. This generally involved the use of: the shrewd himself as a team captain/coordinator, the vigilant Neiji as a scout, the taciturn Shino as a mobile resource, the dutiful Hinata as a medic, the annoying Kiba as a decoy, the horizontally-gifted Chouji as a human shield and finally the utterly expandable Tenten as cannon fodder since that was the only marketable function Shikamaru could think up for her other than giant doorstop. Yes, she was THAT useless, giving competition to even the Queen of the Sucktacular, Kurenai: for instance, during the Leaf's counter-raid on the Hidden Sound village, the two women had been single-handedly beaten to an inch of their lives by Orochimaru's blind and wheelchair-bound paraplegic grandmother, whom in the report they later wrote supposedly 'outnumbered' them. Actually, they would have probably both perished in that assault if their opponent hadn't suddenly gotten an heart attack after Asuma crashed his own jeep through the house, giggling hysterically and having the time of his life randomly destroying stuff. So as you can imagine, with the line of 'defeated by fossilized creature' to add on her impressive curriculum, Tenten couldn't really complain that she was even GIVEN a place on Shikamaru's Anbu team. Anyway, that pretty much sums it up: there was maybe only one other thing that made this unit stand out, and it was the fact that lawnmowers were assigned as the weapon of choice for the whole squad, without making any exceptions. For some odd reason, Shikamaru favored the use of those big and loud machines on stealthy assassination missions, and even MORE strangely he always managed to integrate them in his plans and work it all out just fine in the end. NEVER underestimate the ninja power of a lawnmower, as he liked to say. And...wait, something sounds very wrong in all of this...It's as if...Oh, I see, I had forgotten something! Actually, as Kiba was now in extensive rehabilitation after they found him overdosing on Soldier Pills, he had been temporarily placed off the task force. So yup, it was currently our favorite goody-two-shoe Rock Lee from the reserve who enthusiastically took on Kiba's place as a decoy. And surprisingly, he revealed himself to be a damn good one too, being capable of buying his team just about any amount of time by maintaining the enemy's attention on himself. This was probably due to the fact that the enemies just couldn't RESIST the temptation to slap him whenever they saw his face: he was such a living insult to all that was beautiful that he instantly became the focus of the enemy's disgust whenever he even took the field. I mean come ON, here! Even Chouji looked like a sex machine when he and Lee were placed aside each other, and we're not even talking about the eyebrows: those tight green body suits were simply unforgivable.

Anyway, as much as this team lacked style when they worked (complement of Shikamaru's massive IQ drop), they seldom were unsuccessful at completing their objectives. EVER. For his clever and innovative so-stupid-they-work plans, Shikamaru actually enjoyed a certain amount of success as Konoha's best strategist: his reputation preceded him as an ingenious and cunning young man, very capable and very unique in his own ways to do things. He was the leader of the most elite AND less dysfunctional of the Anbu units, one which Tsunade herself only deployed when dealing with important S-class missions where failure just wasn't an option: and by God, when these guys got into it, they were NOT overrated. One of the most memorable missions of Shikamaru's career was probably when he and his ragtag bunch of Anbus had infiltrated CBS to carry out what would be remembered as the assassination of the century. It had all went very smoothly, from the very beginning of the plan to its very end: first, Shikamaru had Shino drop everyone at the TV station and then subtly wait for them there with the car engine still running. Well, 'subtly' in relative terms of course: basically, what Shino did was park the van vertically right in front of the building, jamming car traffic in both directions. Eh, they were Konoha ninjas and had one heck of a reputation to uphold. Anyway, after purposely setting off the fire alarm, Shikamaru then had Tenten take the blame and draw the attention of all the security guards upon herself by having them beat the crap out of her for wasting their time: of course, he could have just as well placed Lee -the unit's official decoy- back there instead, but Shikamaru finally opted for Tenten because he didn't want to sacrifice GOOD and USEFUL members whenever he could help it. Anyway, with the large breach in security, the five remaining members of the team had then infiltrated the building, lamely disguised as the Backstreet Boys: WTF? Why them, you ask? Because these were the only TV personalities famous enough to unconspicuously enter the building and YET infamous enough to not have a single soul bother them for autographs: every single detail had been PERFECTLY planned out. Afterwards, the team climbed up some stairs, sneaked right through the station's metal detectors and then finally eliminated both Ronald McDonald and Barney the Purple Dinosaur as they were having an affair by bludgeoning them to death with rubber chickens, in broad daylight and with all the cameras in the station taping it from every possible angle. It had all been good up to then but since Shikamaru had fallen asleep during the briefing he had also forgotten to think up an escape procedure: so once they were done disposing of their targets and stupidly hiding them into the main elevator, the team simply made a crazy, disorganized run for it through the fire escape. Unfortunately, they didn't know that some CBS technicians had previously booby-trapped the stairs with banana peels in an attempt to kill their annoying anchorman, so the whole Shikamaru unit tripped and loudly crashed down the building for about 30 stories before reaching ground level, where their misery would end up in a massive football pileup. Some of the members seriously got injured in that process, mainly Chouji whom everyone else had instinctively grabbed and used as a human sled, but thanks to that it only took them five minutes to retreat back to their transport vehicle, a military jeep which by the way had been camouflaged into a bright pink hippie love-van for the occasion: the afro-haired Shino disguised in a Saturday Night Fever outfit then hauled everyone's asses out of there in a hurry, at the same time running over 2 police officers and evading an impending parking ticket. And since they still had their unused lawnmowers in the van, they just tossed the things out the backdoor at tailing police cars, blowing off their pursuers in a _Terminator_ explosive fashion. By the time CBS realized that an assassination had taken place and rejoiced, our favorite Konoha Ninjas were already MILES away from there...although they did forget a half-dead Tenten onsite and decided gas was way too expensive for coming back for her to be worthwhile. The scary conclusion to all of this was that soon after the completion of the mission, the police had more than enough evidence to lock up the REAL Backstreet Boys for a case of lamest clownslaughter and crime of passion ever, therefore making of the whole operation a 2 bird-killer stone: they were THAT good. Who cared if they were unorthodox? They were freaking brilliant, the only ones in their darned Village capable of coming out CLEAN from any scene even after wreaking hell like this. You definitely didn't want to piss off Tsunade too much when she could send this kind of freaks to wait for you in a dark alley.

Shikamaru suddenly woke up and yelped in pain as Ino violently stomped on his foot.

"What the heck was THAT for!.?" he asked, quite annoyed.  
"For falling asleep and ruining the serious atmosphere." Ino responded, her fists on her hips.

Shikamaru grumbled: it had always been like this for as long as he knew her, and even though he was now a higher-ranking officer Ino often kept on brutalizing him for no reason at all. He usually attributed that to the fact that she was quite jealous of his NORMAL intelligence, which she considered wasted on a slacker like himself. And IF Shikamaru had only an IQ of 100 in this story, then Ino was simply very, VERY retarded: the fact that her brain only finished processing Sasuke's explanation right about then with a time of 14'36 minutes was proof enough of that. But Sasuke, who by then had seen a lot worse, was neither disappointed nor impressed by his wife's performance: stopping his chronometer, he simply pulled his sleeve back over his wrist without making any comments. Now, you might think it was really cocky of him to time other people to see just how dense they are, but it's not like Sasuke had a superiority complex or anything: since the average ninja in Konoha Village just incredibly sucked at mentally processing information, the waiting times could sometimes be just like hemorrhoids. Yes, a ROYAL pain in the ASS. And Sasuke was only mildly retarded himself, so timing people was one of the only ways he had found to kill time and keep himself amused during these extended 'loading' periods.

"...Hinata-sama is herself a medical-nin: I'm positive she's quite capable of regenerating from her wounds." Neiji coughed out, trying to smoothly resume our story from where we had left off.  
Yes, I know...I've still got to work out some of the transitions in this story...

"Yes, but unfortunately, she has to regain consciousness first, which is the REAL problem at hand: this wound will only worsen as time passes by. Unless she wakes up and performs that healing seal on herself in the next few hours, she will be crippled for life. But I'll be honest with you, losing an arm is actually a real bargain when you consider the severity of a _Dokugami_: if the blow had just been an inch closer to her thoracic cage, then she'd already be..."

Almost on cue, Hinata began violently coughing up blood, interrupting Sasuke before he even got to the part where he would reach for his watch: this placed everyone in the room on alert again.

"It's an hemorrhage! Crap! Someone get some hospital personnel in here!" Shikamaru yelled out.  
"No good! The only one on shift right now is that fat old nurse who stabs people with empty syringes!"  
"This is NOT the moment to be picky! We...Wait a minute. That kills people, doesn't it? WTF! Aaargh! All right... I saw a big ugly nurse with tattoos downstairs! Get HER!"

It was really ironic, considering that the best medical-nin in the hospital right now was probably Hinata herself. As you've probably noticed, as far as medical personnel went, Konoha Village was also screwed. Come to think of it, there were actually lesser things they WEREN'T screwed in than were: I'm detecting some form of screwiness pattern, here.

"Auntie Hinata! Don't leave me!" the little girl cried as she couldn't hold her tears back any longer.  
"Hang in there, Hinata-sama!"  
"Hinata! Hinata!" the blond woman clung to her convalescent friend's arm. "HINATAAAAAAAA-snort!"

* * *

It hadn't even been a very long time. One hour? Maybe two hours ago? It had been Neiji who found both Hinata and her father in that sad state, when he stopped by his cousin's house. You see, since she had been disowned and cut away from the Hyuuga Main Branch, Hinata lived by herself in a modest little house she had purchased with her own winnings as a medical-nin: this was actually the same place where she had taken care of Naruto in the past. She was a completely independent woman by now, but Neiji, loyal to his duties, still passed by every week or so to check on her and to see if she needed anything. Besides, she was always hospitable and he in turn was well-received, so it wasn't an errand that really bothered him: as a matter of fact he considered those visits quite pleasant, compared to the lack of warmth he found at home with his own close relatives. Not that he cared for either them or the Main Branch, by the way: as far as Neiji was concerned, the only allegiance he held in the Hyuuga system was towards Hinata-sama herself, whom his own father had assigned to protect on that same fateful day he had been marked with the curse seal of servitude. To Neiji, this was his father's last order to him, and no matter if Hinata wasn't from the Main Branch anymore he wouldn't submit to anyone else, be it the Head of the Main Branch or the other young Hyuuga heir, Hanabi. So you're probably asking yourself, why didn't the trigger-happy old bastard just activate Neiji's curse seal to punish his impertinence? Simply put, there were a lot of privileges you received once you had become by far the best your clan had to offer: as these guys after all flattered themselves to be the strongest clan of the Leaf, they couldn't afford to lose their champion without losing face. It was a question of honor and prestige...of the healthy Hyuuga kind. But all this mattered more or less to Neiji: he didn't really care about where the clan stood in the Leaf's hierarchy as long as the Main House simply had to tolerate his insubordination. That, he felt pretty good about. 

Anyway, when he earlier stopped by Hinata's place as per habit, he had been alarmed to find that one of the side walls of her house had been completely destroyed. Being an experienced scout, he instantly deployed his Byakugan, and proceeded into entering the house after unsuccessfully scanning for hostile forms. Call it dumb luck or not, but it was then that he had found Hinata laying unconscious in her own blood, still freshly wounded: had he come by her house any later she would've already expired. It had been a nightmarish and confusing moment for the young man as he rushed by her side: she was in a sad and horrible state, bleeding from every orifice of her face and yet without any trace of injury on her body. What's more, her left arm was in a complete mess, as if its insides had suddenly exploded. It was only when he noticed the five large dents that Hinata bore at forearm level that Neiji understood: he recognized that type of wound only too well, as he too had learned to fear it.

They were unmistakably the mark of the _Byako_ (Albino Fox).  
"Why...? Damn you, Uzumaki! Why did you attack Hinata-sama!"

Oh, and for those that it interests, Neiji also found his uncle's body crushed under the pile of rubble made from the aforementioned destroyed wall. The old dude was pretty much dead by then, considering that while Hinata only had one wound in a relatively non-lethal place, he already had most of his torso area inwardly blown up: so he simply laid there, having long already grown cold and immobile, as blood dripped profusely from his stiffened lips. His lifeless silver eyes kept wide-opened, permanently embedded with fear: he bore the unmistakable stare of a defeated Hyuuga, whom had been overwhelmed in combat and then killed in a most ugly and painful way...But Neiji certainly didn't care: they were related, but that was probably the only connection there had been and now would ever be. As courtesy for a higher-ranking Hyuuga, all the young man could do was close his eyes in disgust and keep himself from glaring at the disfigured corpse, as he would do for any lowly maggot off the streets: moreover, he had someone important to take care of, right now, and no time for the dead. Neiji quickly nailed some of the wounded Hinata's opening points and wrapped her up in his shirt to temporarily slow down her bleeding: he had then picked her up in his arms, intent on sprinting to the hospital's emergency room at the very limits of his speed...BUT before that, he hesitated for a moment on whether he should step on his uncle's corpse or not, and decided to, what the heck, indulge himself a bit before getting on with his business...But AFTER that, Neiji pivoted on himself and silently walked away from the scene, never to look back again. It had been both a sad and wonderful moment for the young Hyuuga.

* * *

"Phew...Things have finally calmed down..." Shikamaru slumped down into a chair, exhausted even though he didn't do a damn thing. Welcome to my world. 

Hinata's breathing had regulated after the big tattooed nurse gave her some injections: it hadn't been really pretty to watch, considering that the woman had a beard and looked like a pirate captain, but at least she had been competent enough to get the job done. So you couldn't only take looks into accounts: it's what inside of a person that matters. In a twisted kind of way, I feel like I'm giving out some sort of life morality here.  
...Naaah! SCREW PERSONALITY!

"I still can't believe Naruto would do such a thing to Hinata..." Ino shook her head. "I mean, seeing them together, I thought maybe he liked her. It's just so...sad..."  
"You've seen the marks: that's the Taijutsu ONLY Uzumaki can use." Neiji pointed out.  
"But couldn't there be another suspect? For instance, couldn't Kakashi-sensei or Sasuke copy that Taijutsu style with their Sharingan?"

It was a pretty valid point that Shikamaru had brought up, but as the Taijutsu expert in the room Neiji simply shook his head.

"It's not a bloodline inheritance, but the Taijutsu Uzumaki developed relies greatly on his own unique fighting instinct, which makes it impossible to emulate. For instance, probably Uchiha and I could copy his _Aragami_ (Wild Bite ) or even his _Dokugami_, but unless we possessed Uzumaki's own reflexes and fighting experience, it wouldn't prove effective in combat at all. You see, unlike most schools of Taijutsu which can be learned and taught, Uzumaki's style is something that has been born of innumerable near-death experiences and years of fighting multiple opponents at once. It's something that's particular to him, and to him alone."

Silence fell again in the room, as everyone returned to their own thoughts. Ino never personally liked the Fox-boy all that much: he was both too cheery and annoying for her taste. But that was also exactly why she couldn't believe the jovial Naruto to be capable of such ruthless and...senseless violence. She sighed: in times like these when she didn't know what to think, she turned to her husband for guidance.

"What's your take on this, Sasuke-kun?"

Since the earlier commotion, Sasuke hadn't moved even an inch from his seat in the back of the room. He just sat there pondering, with his little princess by his side: by now she had fallen asleep and rested her head on his lap. She did snore loudly and disgustingly while he gently passed his fingers through her pink hair, but he was used to it: that was after all one of the traits passed on by her biological mother. Even so, as distracted as he was, after hearing Ino's words Sasuke seemed to break out from his own deep train of thought.

"It just doesn't make any sense. This isn't like him at all. I'm sure there's still something we don't know..."

Neiji snickered.

"How do you know for sure if he didn't just go crazy? When he's angry, he can become just like an animal sometimes...I mean, look at the facts: he did technically slaughter mercilessly the Head of my clan, whom...Uh, by the way, when one of you does the autopsy, try not holding the big foot marks into account. I, uuuh...tripped on the guy."

"I can say this because I KNOW Uzumaki." Sasuke snapped back in an icy tone, disregarding completely the Hyuuga's last unimportant comment.

Neiji shuddered: the peaceful Sasuke of these days rarely ever even took that tone unless he was seriously pissed off. The Hyuuga decided to leave the conversation at that: it wasn't the moment to start an argument but to search for the missing piece they were lacking. Besides, just then Sasuke had opened his mouth to belch loudly: in Uchiha dialect, in more ways than one it basically meant 'shut the fuck up everyone'. So everyone sat silent and thoughtfully entered their own personal analysis of the situation, except Neiji who was simply wondering nervously if foot marks could really be traceable back up to him.

Little did they know the answer to everything would come to THEM instead.

It was about 10 minutes later when a sudden noise had made them all jump up: Neiji was such a pack of nerves by then that he had yelled like a sissy and plunged out the glass window in a blind panic. And they were on the 3rd floor. BUT as Hinata's team leader, Shikamaru promptly identified the repetitive sound as the dial-tone she kept on her cellphone: the group soon fished it out from her personal belongings which had been placed aside.

"What's this number? Should we answer?"

Shikamaru shook his head, taking the cellphone away from Ino's hands: something told him the caller wouldn't stick around unless he could personally talk with Hinata herself. No, it was better they took their chances on a voice mail.  
After the 4rth tone, the phone stopped ringing and they waited in silence for a few minutes, to give any incoming message enough time to register. The Anbu captain then took a deep breath and calmly flipped open the cellphone: their answer obviously laid there.

* * *

When Neiji came back into the room, still pulling out some broken glass shards from his body, he was surprised to find everyone sitting around a cellphone which emitted nothing but static: BUT as they all looked like they were listening too intently to even have noticed that he had stupidly jumped out the window, he figured he's just sneak back into the group as if nothing happened. 

By then, Shikamaru's guess had already been confirmed since a voice mail had indeed been left for Hinata. Cranking up the volume to its highest setting, the group had then waited for the message to play: but some time had passed already, and there was still nothing but static.

They were about to give up hope when they suddenly heard Naruto's voice, whom was obviously in quite a shaken state.  
"_...Hinata-chan? It's me...Naruto...I...I'm calling to see if you're okay now...I..._"

Static filled the void again...then the voice suddenly broke.

"_I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have snapped at your father! I don't know what happened after I activated the second level of my seal, but...I'm sorry, Hinata-chan...I'm just...so sorry...I probably have no excuse for myself now...D, don't come looking for me! I can't face you anymore! I..._"

There was another long pause after the sudden outburst.

"_I...I have nowhere left to go, now...Probably your clan will hunt me down and try to kill me...I'm just a demon fox, after all...But, but I can't die yet. There's something very important left for me to do, and I won't let anyone but HIM claim my life...I'll...I'll even deploy the final level of my seal if that means surviving long enough to confront him! So, forgive me if I have to kill again, Hinata-chan, but right now I have to live, by any means possible. I'm sorry, I've already said too much...And, Hinata-chan? Please be safe...Please?...Don't you DARE die on me..._"

The transmission then abruptly ended, and it was all.

* * *

Neiji suddenly stood up. 

"I've got it!" he yelled out. Everyone gave him a questioning look.  
"...Uh...Well, you see, now that I think about it, that dial tone on Hinata-sama's cellphone was actually a Spice Girls tune. I had ALWAYS wondered if she...Oh, never mind."

He sat back down and tried to ignore the fact that everyone was staring at him in disbelief. Well, that sure was a waste of time. Shikamaru was considering asking the Hyuuga just why he suddenly had little cuts all over his body when something else distracted our group of friends. More surprisingly, it was laughter: a loud and healthy laugh like one sometimes does when reading this fic. And yet, it was also very terrible in its depth: to the attentive listener it sounded more like a heartbreaking cry of sorrow...

Sasuke was simply there, laughing: and for most of them, this was the first time seeing him do so.

"Oh...so THAT'S what it's all about." Sasuke said when he finally regained control. He looked wildly amused.  
"What is it, Sasuke-kun?" Ino asked.

Sasuke gently placed his daughter's head aside and got up from his chair, his hands automatically sticking themselves into the depth of his pockets. But nobody in the room missed that gesture, since it was one of the Uchiha's most noticeable habits: he used to do that to stifle his own warrior's tremble before entering combat.

"Ino, take my daughter home. Nara, how much time do we have before the authorities get to Uzumaki?"

Ino was a bit offended that her husband completely ignored her question, but seeing the serious look on his face, she decided to comply and picked their sleeping daughter up into her arms. As for Shikamaru, although at first surprised by the sudden question, he professionally brushed the feeling aside and made a quick mental estimation.

"The Hyuuga are a proud clan, so they probably requested to Tsunade-sama the permission to handle this situation themselves. Since Neiji only turned in the death report to the Main Branch some time ago, considering the time it would take for them to mobilize, I'd say we have about half an hour. And in a fugitive situation like this, the village should already be locked down nice and tightly, so I don't think Naruto'll be able to get pass the defenses, even at his level. I think it's safe to assume that's he's still somewhere in the village: most likely, he placed that last call from his own cellphone, and considering that our primitive network doesn't go very far out of the village that cuts down a lot of possibilities about where he could be hiding. Finally, with the frequency of static emitted during the transmission, I'd say he's also somewhere with a lot of high trees...Which pinpoints to us his exact current location, since there's only one place in a 2 miles radius where we could actually find trees taller than ...Wait, you ARE thinking of hunting him down, aren't you?"

"Not at all." Sasuke snickered. "I would hunt him down, but he's not running away at all: thanks for the information, Nara, but I already know where he is. He's waiting for me."  
"Sa...Sasuke-kun! What is this all about!" Ino cried out, completely confused: but she only received a cold glare from him.  
"Don't you understand, Ino? This is about Haruno. This is about Sakura! It has always BEEN about her. Uzumaki leaving and Uzumaki coming back...it has all been because of what HAPPENED to Sakura! He's not here to visit or anything, he's here to settle his own accounts with me! It all makes perfect sense now!"

Sasuke started laughing again, surprising everyone with his sudden bursts of emotions: he was usually so cool-headed that they hadn't seen him getting this agitated since...well, since he simply stopped being an active ninja. You see, nowadays, excitement wasn't something Sasuke openly demonstrated unless he was surrounded by more than 5 enemy Jounins out for his blood, thus giving him some challenge. Not that he had many chances to, either: lately, he just spent most of his days staying home, killing time with stupid little hobbies, and only getting up when his presence was absolutely necessary, under penalty of castration. Don't ASK: that was the only thing Uchihas were actually scared of. So why was Sasuke expressing so many emotions right now? Sensing an impending crisis, Shikamaru made a quick phone call: just as everyone else, this facet of Sasuke which seemingly hadn't come out in a long time was starting to worry him. Ino seemed especially distressed, and for a damn good reason.

To her, there was a whole lot more riding in this: she had been with Sasuke for only too long now, and she knew very well there were only a few things capable of stirring his blood up like this. And it wasn't only the perspective of some regular impending combat, either: she hadn't seen him so lively ever since they had gotten married. Come to think about it, on that same day, he had also taken his retirement from active duty and from doing missions so that he could spend more time raising his daughter...It suddenly appeared to her just WHY she was so scared right now: Sasuke was literally reverting to the person he was before they had exchanged vows. Right now, he wasn't the caring husband and father she knew but the Uchiha warrior whom defeated more than 100 great ninjas in his prime. The coldness in his eyes when he had glared at her had suddenly made everything crystal clear: the only reason why her husband had laid down his weapons was because he had been waiting for this moment, when he would face his only true rival in combat and finally give a conclusion to the story that had now for only too long haunted the both of them. Her lips trembled.

"And the reason that you will go meet up with Naruto...is because you both still love her."

Maybe if he had at least tried to deny that, she would have felt better: heck, he could have even told her she was the only one for him, even if then it would be nothing more than a painfully obvious lie. At least he would have said SOMETHING.

But Sasuke simply remained silent.

Ino suddenly felt her cheeks wet as her own body became very weak: to everyone else in the room, it was a painful spectacle but to watch her stumble towards the door, looking devastated and utterly defeated. But before another word could be said, she had already crashed out of the room, her daughter in hands, and as she ran away a gentle weeping could be heard echoing throughout the hospital's cold and lonely halls.

"How DARE you treat a woman that way? She's your wife! You're no better than Uzumaki!" Neiji said as he grabbed the Uchiha by the collar, visibly angry.

As for Shikamaru, he simply stood there and waited for explanations: this had been the first time he had EVER seen his ex-partner acting feminine. He was genuinely impressed.

"Leave her: Ino is a strong woman, this won't affect her long. Besides, we've got work to do." Sasuke simply answered for his defense.

And he was right: the priority had now become the capture of Uzumaki Naruto. Getting overwhelmed by emotions such as anger or sadness wasn't going to resolve anything. Neiji spat in frustration, but Shikamaru decided not to get involved in the Uchihas' family business and stayed cool. There was probably more he didn't know about, and getting angry spent too much energy anyway.

"I need your help, Nara: half an hour is not long enough. How much more time can you buy me?"

The shrewd captain clasped his hands together and closed his eyes, as he usually did when forming a plan: it was a wonder how he could think faster by doing this, but as it worked fine enough nobody cared about the details. It took him about 30 seconds before coming up with something: as close to narcoleptia as he was, when it came to action, Shikamaru didn't even blink.

"We don't have time to assemble my whole unit, but I had guessed we would come to something like this. I've already contacted Shino: with him and Neiji, I just thought of something that could stall the Hyuuga's Main Branch momentarily. I can promise you up to one hour."  
"That will be enough. Arigatou." Sasuke gave Shikamaru a slight bow: coming from an Uchiha, that was almost an honor.  
"By the way, you ARE perfectly aware that by now, with an account of murder and one of attempted murder against the Hyuuga, Naruto is up for a lynching as a S-class criminal, don't you?"  
"Yes, I'm aware of that."  
"If you're going to meet up with him like this and thus interfere in the Hyuuga's business, you do realize you will be considered Naruto's accomplice, right? Even your title of #1 Konoha Jounin won't be able to help you there. Why won't you simply let the Hyuuga Main House solve this?"

Sasuke chuckled. Death as a criminal was probably the least of his worries right now.

"I owe Uzumaki for a lot of things. I'll end everything myself for his own sake and mine."

Shikamaru closed his eyes and smiled sadly: he had guessed the proud Uchiha would say something that.

"Then so be it. I'll back you up."

Neiji, whom had been standing at the window and scanning the horizon with his Byakugan, suddenly pointed out at an approaching vehicle.

"Uh, Nara, I think Aburame's here. WITH our very gay pink van we didn't bother to redecorate yet. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he's still wearing that afro: man, it just looks so wrong on Asians..."

Shikamaru struck out an energetic pose, lamely pointing towards the open window.

"YOSH! TO THE SHIKAMOBILE!"

Neiji looked as thrilled as a coffin salesman at the idea of setting foot back in the squad's colorful vehicle, but as they were technically on mission now, he couldn't comment on his superior's decisions. He scratched his head.

"Soooooo...are we gonna go fetch some lawnmowers at the armory this time?"  
"We don't have time: we'll just requisition some from the first sucker's tool shed we find on our way. Can't go without lawnmowers."

Sasuke, even in this very serious moment, rose an eyebrow.

"...Lawnmowers?"

Shikamaru simply answered Sasuke with a wink as he and Neiji jumped out the window and slid down the hospital's gutter pipe in a very lame 60's superhero fashion.

"NEVER underestimate the ninja power of a lawnmower."

They then quickly embarked into Shino's van and, after performing a masterful 180, the Aburame floored the vehicle and drove it off into the distance at breakneck speed. They did unexpectedly crash into Tenten -whom had just managed to come back to the village by WALKING- along the way, but without even slowing down Shino simply washed her off the windshield by activating the wipers.

And then they were gone, to do whatever it is they did best: the rest was up to him. Sasuke passed a hand through his dark hair and took a deep breath: looking up, a familiar red color could be seen glowing in his eyes as he resolvedly grabbed his trademark Jounin vest and made his way to the door.

He was heading out for the fight of his lifetime and possibly his own grave: this was going to be a some night.

* * *

**Author's notes/driveling: ****Well, I would have liked to post in chapter 4 of the story earlier, but unfortunately, a lot of pressing matters came up and I couldn't complete the chapter's editing…Yes, you've heard right: although it may seem like I'm just throwing in stuff totally randomly in my chapters, it DOES take a minimum of organization or else it just wouldn't (somewhat) flow. Yes, even stupidity must be organized sometimes or most of the impact would be dulled through the process of writing. But as most of the stuff I come up with is completely spontaneous, it's really hard sometimes to all fit into the final draft (not to mention that most of the comments are just there for really cheap laughs). Anyway, I'll now answer some of you folks' questions about the time-shifting since I seem to have arisen a lot of confusion and questions.**

**So, the timeline: some of you wondered just 'when' each chapter took place. Well, you see, the thing is that there IS no timeline. How can I explain this…?  
Imagine this story as a puzzle, and each chapter of it as a single piece. I am not going to give out the pieces in a precise and chronological order, so you peeps will simply have to figure out how it all fits together in the end. For those who read carefully, you'll notice I DO drop some hints about exactly 'when' which chapter happens.  
Basically, this story will only switch between 2 times: the time 'before', in which Naruto is still a teenager, and the time 'after', in which Naruto is a grown adult. A pattern I will maintain for your convenience will make every odd-numbered chapter take place in the 'before' time, and every even-numbered chapter take place in the 'after' time. For instance, you might have noticed that chapter 1 and 3 closely follow each other in the 'before' time. But keep in mind it's not always that way: just as chapter 5 might just wander off totally to somewhere else in the 'before' time, the events in chapter 4 can be very far from those that occur in chapter 2. Anyway, if you don't understand now, you'll grasp the concept as you tag along.**

**So why the HELL am I bothering to do this, you ask? Because certain events wouldn't be as interesting if all told in chronological order: it's a lot harder to build up suspense if you already have all the pieces, wouldn't you agree? But you can tell the DULLEST story in this way and still have people interested, since it maintains a certain degree of mystery until the very last piece is placed into the puzzle. Or sometimes, I'll simply never give out a piece and leave it to your imagination. I've said it when beginning this fic: 'I do believe that the way in which a story is told can alter it completely'. And this is the way in which this story will be told. Too complicated? Then there are plenty of other stories out there for you: I have no say on whatever entertains you best, and if you don't like a story, simply stop reading it. I know there are also some plot problems in this chapter, but I just couldn't do any better if I tried. Do you have any idea how painful each time I need to re-read through the whole thing for corrections? Argh... **

**Oh, and finally, 'Byako' simply means "Spiritual Fox" or "Albino Fox": it's not to be confused with 'Byakko', which is the White Tiger God, Guardian of the East (or was it West?) of the Chinese Imperial City. As for the names of the techniques, they come from a 2-D fighting game of which I have been a fan for years, although the technique in itself is something I came up with. Can anyone trace up the reference? ;P **

See y'all next chapter.

_Finch - What It Is To Burn_


	5. Chapter 4: Vendetta PART 2

**Chapter 4 -** _Vendetta: The Path of Pride -PART 2_

"This…place. This exact same place." he whispered as his eyes unconsciously scanned through his surroundings.

He came to a sudden realization.  
"I've already been here."

It seemed as if nothing had changed at all since the last time Sasuke had set foot here: he could clearly remember that black and white tiled floor, that cheap and uncomfortable waiting bench, those dinky little $20 paintings that were hung awkwardly side by side…Even those cracks he had made on the wall, near the exit, were still there. Now, the sight would have left anyone else indifferent: but to this Jounin, whom had been unconsciously avoiding the place for the last 8 years, it was more than enough to make his own heart skip a beat.

Since the lights had already been turned off at this time of day, to him it almost seemed as if the scenery and settings had been purposely conserved in this way, patiently waiting for the moment when he would visit again. The Uchiha melancholically turned his head and noticed that he was right in front of the emergency room: after the completion of Hinata's earlier operation, its signal was now deactivated, at rest. There were no other emergencies tonight, and all was well.  
Chuckling softly, Sasuke quickened his pace, passed rapidly through the hall and proceeded into exiting from the building without another second of hesitation.

There were no pleasant memories left for him in this dump.

* * *

_The halls were quiet and deserted: only a negligible fraction of the medical personnel stayed on call this late into the night, and without the lights turned on, the white walls in front of Naruto looked nothing short of gloomy. _

"Kuso."  
This really hadn't been his night: just now, when the group had rushed into the hospital, there was absolutely no one to turn to for help. Naruto knew perfectly well that the medical situation in Konoha Village was terrible, but for God's sake, this was just ridiculous! Not even one damn nurse on call!.? Thinking about it, maybe it was simply because there weren't enough qualified medical-nins in the village, and that the existing ones couldn't always be on duty. Or maybe everyone was too busy with their own self-centered lives, leaving only Tsunade-obasan in cases of emergency like this.

The young man spat: there was probably SOMEONE to blame.  
Yes, he was perfectly aware that it wasn't the time for trivial matters such as pointing fingers, but he wanted someone to hate so badly right now: everything seemed to get so much easier whenever he got furious. It was irresponsibly running away, but at least in those situations when anger clouded his mind he didn't have to think at all. Actually, right now, he would have probably given anything to blank out completely…but he felt too weak and helpless to even brush his own despair aside. He, the relentless Demon Fox Child, was feeling too tired to do anything else than sit there on the bench, in a haze: it was almost unreal.

_You see, as far as Naruto was concerned, he had now officially lost EVERYTHING: from old friendships and past efforts to any remaining hopes and dreams…It had all either gone to waste or simply become completely devoid of meaning. Even more importantly, no matter how much he tried, he wasn't able to get her glare out of his mind: she had actually GLARED at him, with eyes full of anguish and resentment… _

She had never looked at him that way before tonight.

"Damn you, Sasuke…" he continually mumbled under his breath. "Why did you have to exist…?"  
He looked into his own hands in pure disgust and anger.  
"And you…why are you so weak!"

_The light over the ER's doorway stopped blinking red: strangely, that detail gave Naruto enough energy to rise to his feet. Sure, he thought. Nothing would ever be the same from now on, and since they BOTH hated him now he probably could stop caring, too. But he at least wanted to see this to the very end: as the loser, it was the only noble ending he could think for himself.__  
The knob turned, the door opened and someone came out of the room…but this definitively wasn't whom he wanted to see. Anyone but HIM._

_Sasuke walked out of the ER, and noticing the other boy's presence, indifferently stared at him…_

* * *

"Sasuke-kun!" 

Sasuke snapped out from his thoughts and instinctively stopped in his tracks at the mention of his name: he had just walked half a block away from the hospital when he had heard that familiar voice call for him. Looking to his right, he noticed his wife running in his direction, dragging along their sleepy young daughter by the hand: but what REALLY caught his eye and surprised him was what else she was carrying with her In her other hand, Ino was holding unto two neatly-sheathed blades: a large, sturdy European-like broad sword and a slender, slightly curved Japanese katana.

"I've got your swords." Ino simply said when she was close enough to him.  
"Ino…I gave up those on the day that I married you."  
"Now YOU listen here, mister! I know perfectly well you're on your way to a fight to the death against Naruto! Look at it as you may, but the fact remains that he's already become a legend in most of the countries he's passed through! He's a friggin' MONSTER, for God's sake! W…why do I even have to tell you this? Of all people, YOU should know what you're going up against! Do you really think you can defeat him as you are right now?"

The Jounin looked away, but Ino grabbed his arm and forced him to listen.

"Sasuke-kun, you are NOT a Taijutsu expert: you're a swordsman. And you know what's going to happen if you don't take up your swords and at least fight him at your very best? You won't survive at all: he's going to KILL you. He's going to SLAUGHTER you and RIP off every single one of your limbs."

Sasuke smiled sadly.

"Then maybe that would be for the best."  
"Even your private parts, so that you'll end up like your brother." Ino scoffed.

Sasuke shuddered uncontrollably at the mention of his one and only fear: she just HAD to bring that up, now didn't she?

"Okay, so that might NOT be for the best…However, I don't think Uzumaki…"  
"EVERYONE knows about the Uchihas' sole weakness, Sasuke-kun."  
"…Oh. Crap." Great, just what he needed to hear: that icy feeling in his pants just got more uncomfortable now.

The little girl just stood there yawning and blinking, completely oblivious to the whole situation.

"Mommy, what are you and daddy talking about?"  
"It's nothing, honey. Just…adult conversation. You're an Uchiha, you'll understand too one day…if you don't grow pretty enough."  
"Oh…okay!"

And the sweet and innocent thing could still smile by then, since she still wasn't in the age to understand the subject at hand. I don't know about you, but I feel for the kid: with sick clan rules like that, it was a real wonder how she still had virgin ears.

Sasuke recovered his cool and shook his head.  
"Ino, this is my fight: I strictly forbid you to butt into it. There are a lot of things Uzumaki and I haven't come to terms yet, and mano-a-mano is the only way we'll ever solve everything. It's not just a question of principle, so there's no use trying to talk me out of it. Now that everything's boiled down to this, I have to…No, it's my DUTY to face him."

He crossed his arms and stared intently into her eyes, showing how dead serious he was: but just as he was half-expecting her to run off again, Ino violently rammed both of the swords hilt-first into his stomach, knocking the air out of him.

"Do you honestly think I've come all this way just to hold you back, because I'm one of those crystal-like maidens in distress who can't stand seeing her love getting into danger? Huh!.? News flash for you, bud: I too am a Konoha shinobi! I too am bound by laws of honor and pride! And the reason why I'm letting you go alone right now isn't because you can just order me around: it's because I also happen to know what took place between you and Naruto, years ago! Don't you see? I UNDERSTAND you better than anyone, Sasuke-kun! Geez, at least give me that much credit as your WIFE!"

Maybe it was the burning killer fire in her eyes. Or maybe just the fact that there were too many exclamation marks to handle in a single dialog bubble. Whatever. Our Jounin was left completely shocked and speechless face to this shameless butchering of the English language.

"………"  
"GO! Since you feel like dying so badly, just take your stupid swords with you already and go fight!"

She angrily threw both of the sword sheaths right into his face, and Sasuke managed to catch them before getting seriously injured: so surviving that infamous shuriken-catching class DID pay off, he thought. Nevertheless, at this point, both Uchiha father and daughter were getting a bit scared: not only because Ino's face slap had grown quite lethal over the years, but also because neither of them were used to this kind of familial discord.

As unlikely as it sounded, the Uchihas rarely argued and usually got along quite well. You see, since their marriage, both Sasuke and Ino simply happened to evolve into the kind of responsible individuals capable of taking on this sort of commitment. Over the years, they kinda dulled each other's immaturity out, actually: just as Sasuke eventually became less obsessed with fighting and getting stronger, Ino would become less obsessed with Sasuke being obsessed with fighting and getting stronger. A strange bond born in strange ways, one could say. Anyway, although it was overall one big complicated mess of concessions and tradeoffs, their union nevertheless held together quite firmly. Oh, the couple sometimes did have their arguments, though...mostly due to the fact that Sasuke plain sucked at housework. But who could blame him for that, really? As the best ninja of the Leaf, the Uchiha warrior already had to memorize over dozens of thousands of advanced jutsus: what, was he supposed to go now and Sharinganize basic and ninja-irrelevent stuff, like how to wash dishes? Fat chance! He kept on insisting that his Sharingan was reserved for complicated stuff only, even though that kind of stubborness ended up costing Ino quite a nerve-raking sumo buttload of broken ceramic. And as if the dishwashing issue wasn't enough, Sasuke also had a problem with accidently setting himself on fire, especially when he attempted grilling stuff on their diesel-powered barbecue: that was mostly due to the fact that he strictly refused to wear the only apron they had, a cute flowery one. For some odd reason, the Uchiha had a serious issue against wearing ANYTHING flowery, be it an apron or a cloak. Anyway, as you imagine, it was bad enough to just let the house rot by itself, but it was even worse to actually ask Sasuke for help: at that point in time, Ino honestly hated her life.

You might argue that seeing her savoir-faire challenged husband, Ino could have probably cutted him some slack by also covering for his part of the chores: but unfortunately you see, she already had her hands full taking care of the kid. So how did the couple finally work out the issue without having to resort to violence, or at least violence between themselves? The answer is simple: by getting someone ELSE to do it for them, of course! What happened was that eventually, Ino came to a forced 'agreement' with her Anbu captain friend, Nara Shikamaru: you can all remember how this guy dealed with HIS housework, right? So what Ino asked of him that day could somewhat be resumed to this: 'On weekends, have the troops sent over to the Uchiha residence and have them work the magic. OR ELSE.' Threatened at point blank range with a kitchen knife, Shikamaru quickly calculated that the smart option would be to accept: by now, you'd think the guy would know the blond woman well enough to determine if it was an idle threat or not. And besides, the Nara DID manage to get a fairly decent Shougi partner out of the deal, since the Sharingan-equipped Sasuke could certainly entertain him for a while on each visit. So all in all, Shikamaru didn't mind too much, or at least not as badly as his team of slaves did. And as for Sasuke himself...well, he frankly just didn't care all that much anymore. Either vegetating in front of a Shougi board or in front of the TV, watching ninja football...heck, it was all the same to him, just as long as he didn't have those troublesome but yet simplistic house tasks forced upon him anymore. And up to this day, he's still the kind of guy who can't heat oatmeal without having the microwave oven implode for some reason.

So what did we learn? Well, it just goes to show that sometimes, you could depend on old friends to save your marriage simply by threatening them repeatedly with sharp objects. Yup. And that's probably also THE worst lesson about responsability we could potentially pull out from this anecdote: since this is purely an amoral fic, I don't know why I even bothered to mention the R word in the first place. But just between us, by ninja standards, a household system that kept everyone happy and un-stabbed was still a pretty good one: so even if our Uchihas had strange ways of dealing with their problems, they were still doing rather well as a family. Well, at least better than the Hyuugas, whom simply shot everyone annoying before sunrise...Or the Naras, for that matter, since they just slept everything off. BUT maybe not as well as the Akimichis, whom dealt in pagan god offerings: since these guys always had something to eat REGARDLESS of if their goat sacrifices solved their problems or not, it was always a win-win situation at Chouji's place. Yes, he was one happy bastard.

Sooooo as I was saying, Ino was yelling at Sasuke, in what by the way seemed like aeons ago because of all this drivelling. Eh, come on now! It's not easy to make smooth transitions with this kind of story! But anyway, although Sasuke wasn't someone whose habit was to tolerate this tone of voice from anyone NOR anything, right now he didn't do a damn thing: which was quite strange, considering that usually coming this close to openly provoking/annoying him was simply asking for an instant trip six feet under. But there was a very good reason why Sasuke was sucking it in for Ino right now, and that was because she was his WIFE, and thus the real boss in the house. Tough luck for him, but in the Uchiha household hierarchy pyramid, the wife was always at the top: it was enough to make him re-think just why the hell he decided to get married.  
For those interested, our Jounin was usually placed dead last in that pyramid, just under the dog...that they USED to have. You see, as a wedding gift, Kiba had actually given the Uchihas a cute little puppy, which their daughter simply adored and lovingly named Kikumaru. Ah, how the girl just LOVED that puppy, talking to it, playing with it day and night...that is, until it eventually vanished under mysterious circumstances. Considering just how 'safe' your average Konoha ninja was behind the steering wheel, everyone then simply assumed that Kikumaru had fallen victim to one of the many daily roadkills. Well, everyone except for Ino, that is: she actually had reason to believe that Sasuke had something to do with it, since he seemed simply TOO happy about reclaiming his respected 3rd rank in the Uchiha house. And for starters, he always had been a cat-person: she even remembered hearing him say he didn't even LIKE dogs...unless stir-fried. Come to think of it, Sasuke DID hold a very suspicious barbecue, later on that evening, but all she could now remember was him tripping and accidently setting half the house on fire. The Kikumaru mystery case was pretty much forgotten after that, and would probably forever remain unsolved.

ANYWAY. Seriously speaking, though, Sasuke wasn't the kind of guy who would snap back at Ino even when he was really pissed. And pissed was probably the LAST thing he was at the moment, since, well...as strong as her tone was and as angry as she looked, tears were nevertheless uncontrollably streaming down her face. It looked as if Ino's eyes had a mind of their own, but he knew better.

"Ino…"  
"You may think that you have nothing left to lose, but I do! Sakura-chan does!"

At the mention of that name, Sasuke suddenly froze: Ino knew perfectly well this was one of his only sensible cords, and she played on it. When mentioning Itachi wasn't enough, she always had that as backup.

"Take up your swords again, Sasuke-kun."  
"…So you're asking me to kill Uzumaki? Is this justifiable?"  
"I'm selfish enough," Ino answered, "to rather have my own husband kill than be killed."

There was a short silence, as the Jounin pondered on her words.

"It's hard to tell…but against Uzumaki, even if I fight at my very best, there's still a good chance I might not make it."  
"I don't need you to promise me that you'll come back alive…What I DO want you to promise me is that you'll hold absolutely nothing back, and try your very hardest to win. And if promising it to me is meaningless to you, then promise it to your own daughter."

She pushed the little girl forward for the dramatic effect: when the latter refused to move, Ino went for comedy instead and energetically kicked her in the ass, making the young princess awkwardly fly a few steps towards her father.

"Ittaaa! Daddy…I don't know what's going on, but…please don't make Mommy sad anymore…"  
She was a fragile little creature, and every time he looked at her Sasuke felt both pride and sadness swell his being: it was probably because she looked so strikingly similar to her mother, on those younger days when he had first met her. His daughter had the emerald eyes and the pink hair, and even the large forehead: she possessed from the annoying mannerism up to the very same squeaky voice. In every thing she did and said, Sasuke couldn't help but feel his heart cringe as fond and yet painful memories flooded his mind.

Her name was Uchiha Sakura, daughter of the now departed Haruno Sakura: this girl was at the same time the light in his life and the ball and chains to his past. A gift to his existence, and yet a curse…You know, like the X-men's mutant powers, except that you didn't have to go around saving people. Eh, that comparison was probably so out of place, it just screwed up everything even more! Man, I suck at building dramatic tension. Sorry.  
Let's just say that there wasn't a doubt in the world just how much the little tyke represented to Sasuke: at least he knew that for sure.

"Sakura-chan…Leaving you again will have killed me twice..." he whispered, and gently pressed his lips against her forehead.

She shivered a bit at the contact, unused to open gestures of affection from the part of her father, but she didn't say a word: Sakura-chan then moved back to her mother's side, whom bent down and wrapped the little girl in her arms. Upon seeing this touching image of his wife and daughter side-by-side, it suddenly dawned upon Sasuke that he wasn't just a lonely warrior who could throw his life away at any time anymore: he was a husband and father. Perhaps not examplary ones, but there were nevetheless still many many things left for him to do, even after this fight against Naruto: as the last Uchiha patriarch, he had to first see through the resurrection of his clan, and then he had to see Sakura-chan at least into adulthood. And maybe get her a kitten, this time around...

You see, just as Fate had taken away that young pink-haired woman in the spring of his life, It had given Sasuke both the healing he needed to close his past scars and the strength to take a new and stronger step forward. Both Ino and the young Sakura had been blessings of Time, and the house they now filled with life was the sanctuary where he could always go back to whenever he lost confidence, or needed to reinspire himself. There were not many ways to describe it: they were simply...HIS family. He belonged at their side, and if there was now one thing which was asked of him, it was to simply be there and protect them. He was granted far too many new responsibilities to die here.  
"I'll definitely…do my best."

Ino stood speechless as she watched her husband familiarly slide both his sheaths through his belt and secure them into place: the weapons looked so at home by his side that she had a hard time deciding if this was more like a dream or a nightmare. In a flash, both swords had been masterfully drawn out, and Sasuke whirled them around at blinding speed, in controlled and extremely precise maneuvers: standing so very close to him, the scared young Sakura hid behind her mother for protection, but Ino herself showed no sign of fear as the naked blades whizzed by her, sometimes by a hair's width. Now this wasn't normal, you see: in the anime universe, usually the LAST thing you ever wanted was to get cut by something sharp. Why is that? Well, since japanese standards seem to imply that human beings can biologically contain a whopping 15 gallons of blood each, under HIGH pressure, you can probably imagine just how gratuitously it could also piss out from everywhere during sword fights. No really, even at the smallest, tiniest and insignificant scratches! Everyone here who's watched some samurai movies in the past should know what I'm talking about, and you KNOW it's true. For God's sake, even Asuma's fighting style clearly demonstrates he already understood that principle a long time ago! But don't you think that it's just really disturbing seeing someone die looking like a human water sprinkler? I mean, come on, it's sick! Well, although I gotta ADMIT that at least it's flashy enough to be memorable: but still, does anyone here find movies like _Kill Bill Vol.1_ so cartoonishly violent that they're funny? Urgh. Anyway, let's cut short my obscure references that no one gets and get back to the chase. Back on track, everyone!

So why in her current predicament wasn't Ino moving out of harm's way NOR soiling herself out of trauma? It's simple, really.  
Because she had known THIS swordsman long enough to know that the chances of him mishandling his weapons... were simply nonexistent.

Everyone probably pieced this together already, but if Sasuke was pretty good in in his early teens, his adult self was now a total BADASS. His skill, however, had a somewhat tragic side to it: you see, Sasuke's main motive in life, heck, his ONLY motive in life used to be training in order to get revenge for his clan. What basically made him strive for perfection were deep feelings of anger, which pushed him to his very limits for extended periods of time: so understandably, even though he had ultimately put out all hatred in his heart, the results of all those years of hard work still followed him around like some sort of malediction. In other words, by the time Sasuke realized he didn't care all that much to hunt down his brother anymore, he had already become one of the greatest ninjas in the world: there was even talk about him becoming the next Konoha Hokage, something which he never even considered. But it was undeniable: it was this same incredible dexterity and honed swordsmanship in demonstration that had given Uchiha Sasuke the incontestable title of #1 Jounin in Konoha Village. Sure, Uzumaki Naruto might have become the wandering _Byako_, self-styled with one of the most destructive Taijutsus in existence...but Uchiha Sasuke was the _Tenken_ (Heavenly Blade) of the Leaf, master of all its 127 patented sword styles. During his days of glory, he was known as someone whom had nothing to envy from anyone, nor would lose TO anyone: he simply was the best.

But neither to him nor to his wife did that reputation even matter, really.  
To Sasuke, whom had only been training to kill Itachi, this strength was now simply a remnant of his tainted past as an avenger, nothing more and nothing less. What happened was that several years after Naruto's disappearance from the Village, Sasuke decided to settle down and just quit being a ninja, so that he would have more time to raise the daughter he was entrusted with: without hesitating, he had casted aside those proud swords of his as nothing more but a burden of ill memories. But why the sudden change of heart? Well, that's just the kind of man Sasuke turned out to be, after long pondering on what he had learned of his mentor Hatake Kakashi's experiences: a lifetime of hate and revenge just wasn't what he wanted anymore. And we gotta agree with the guy: between hunting and trying to kill someone or just staying at home reading Come Come Paradise, the latter's a lot sweeter. And besides, Itachi's gender crisis was punishment enough for the poor sap: there was no need to seek further justice.

As for Ino, the Sasuke she learned to love was the one whom had come to terms with his own parents' deaths, and exchanged his weapons for an uneventful and peaceful life with her. She didn't CARE that he used to be a hero or even a legend in Konoha Village, or even if he could become the next Hokage: to her he was simply a good father, whom had given up everything to watch over his own daughter as she would grow up. Bad, clumsy and unhelpful husband, okay, but one good and dedicated father. And the last thing she needed right now was for him to get in touch with his bad self, which didn't simply mean going into a funky disco hall to get his groove on.

It was a lot worse, actually: the _Tenken_ of the Leaf was known to be a cold, calculating man, just cruel enough to be an completely ruthless assassin. One of those cliché shady and antisocial bastards, actually. Although looking at the current mild-mannered Sasuke, it was actually kinda hard to imagine that he had once even WENT through that phase: it was something Ino was well determined not to let happen again, too, for his own sake and hers. But unfortunately there were also many things which were beyond even her power to capture and control: events following each other, she just knew one day her husband would simply have to pick up his weapons again. An Uchiha's destiny was to fight, now and probably forever. Everything in the world working by equal trades, this was probably just the drawback of having the Leaf's most talented and sexiest ninja as a husband: it sucked for Ino, but things had to be balanced out somehow.

Sasuke was finally done verifying that his swords had been maintained to his satisfaction and he sheathed them back in to rest, without breaking a sweat: both his own edge and his swords' hadn't dulled even a bit.

"Arigatou. I'll go, now." Sasuke said, while turning back.  
"Sasuke-kun, once this is all over…you'll always have a family and a home to come back to, if you wish. I'll wait for you. We'll wait for you."

He had already taken a few steps when he stopped, thinking about what she said: the odds were that he probably wasn't even going to be GIVEN the chance to decide whether to come back or not. It was simple, really: if Naruto didn't get him first, then the Hyuugas would catch him and have him executed for high treason. He was actually cornered either way.

"You know, Ino…you're a good woman, and living with you has actually been quite pleasant. I really appreciate everything you've been willing to put through, even though I…."  
"It's okay, Sasuke-kun: I've already understood, on that day you've given that ring to me. Despite the fact that all you ever wanted from me was to ensure the continuity of your clan, the choice to marry you was something I decided on my own. True, it was Haruno's last request, and part of me also did hope that one day my feelings toward you would become completely reciprocal…But none of that matters anymore. Even if there are still many things about you which I can't accept yet…Now at least I can understand them. I have no regrets."

Ino felt a gentle tug on her sleeve.

"Mommy, why are you and Daddy speaking so seriously with each other…?"

Sasuke sighed: this was going to be harder than he thought. But although all seemed lost, he didn't want his family to give up hope just yet. He was saying goodbye, but just in case.

"…Ino, if anything happens to me, I'll entrust everything to you. Live strongly, and raise my daughter to become an honest and righteous woman. As for you, Sakura-chan, be good to your mother, okay?"  
"Daddy...Are you going someplace far away? I don't want you to leave..."

The raven-haired Jounin crouched and gave the little girl a tight hug before getting up and securing the sheaths by his side for the last time. He then briefly glanced back at his wife.

"Go in peace...Sasuke-kun. Sayonara." she managed to say in a broken voice. Not another second passed before Sasuke began dashing rapidly into the night: that was probably all he wanted to hear.

Ino delicately wiped her own eyes: Uchiha Sasuke was an incarnation of the sword and sentimentalism simply wasn't his bag. Letting him off the hook this way was probably for the better. It only took the master ninja several seconds before blending into the shadows and completely vanishing from sight…

Ino could still somewhat pinpoint her husband's location when she heard Tenten yelp in pain as he unconsciously stepped on her, though. Apparently, the poor sap hadn't moved even an inch since Shino ran her over with his van. Ino's gentle nature wondered for a moment if she should go help the other woman, but then decided to just bring Sakura-chan home since it was way past bedtime for her: whatever happened in Shikamaru's unit was his own problem.

* * *

_"You're still here?"  
"Sakura-chan? How is she?" Naruto asked back, frowning. Sasuke simply shook his head.  
"There's nothing left…to see."_

That was the only answer the Anbu would dignify the stunned Naruto with, before pushing him aside and slowly making his way towards the exit. Naruto didn't like that one bit: as discourteous as his ex-teammate often was, something was definitely wrong…He began analyzing the Anbu's words, and just as he understood what could have been implied, the air began stinking up of death. Panic took hold of Naruto's body, and he made a mad rush into the emergency room, literally kicking the door open.

He arrived just in time to see Tsunade throwing a blanket over a body.  
"Obasan! What happened? What happened to Sakura-chan!"  
"I'm sorry, Naruto…I did my best. But her body was simply too young to handle the birthing process…Even though the baby is fine, the mother didn't make it. I'm terribly sorry, Naruto." The elderly woman explained to him, sadness overwhelming her traits.  
"I did what I could."

Naruto couldn't even hear the bawling of the newborn as a part of his mind shut itself down: all he could do right now was to helplessly watch every inch of the way as his Hokage placed the mortuary blanket slowly over his friend's face, covering her eyes, her forehead, and finally her long pink hair. Then, just as the Uchiha had told him, nothing would be left for him to see: that was the last time he'd ever be allowed to lay eyes on Haruno Sakura.

She was gone. There were no miracles, and he had been a fool to believe in them.

_Sasuke was thoughtfully fiddling with something in his hand when he took the massive flying kick in the back of the head: the shock sent him plunging forward and he dropped what he was holding, the small object clanking twice on the ground before coming to a stop. Had Sasuke been in his normal state of mind, he probably would have seen that coming from a mile away: but he was too disturbed right now to focus. Although a bit stunned by the attack, the experienced Anbu nevertheless brushed his dizziness aside and instinctively rolled to his feet, assuming a Taijutsu stance. Looking back, he saw Naruto standing in the middle of the hallway, an accusing finger pointed in his direction. He was...crying._

"Sasuke...why...? Why?"

The blonde boy then completely exploded, anger deforming his facial traits into a hideous mask of hate.

"YOU BASTARD! YOU KILLED SAKURA-CHAN! YOU KILLED HER!"

Sasuke frowned and steadied himself as the other boy dashed in his direction…

* * *

"Oi, Uchiha. So you came alone?" 

Sasuke was almost taken aback at how acute Naruto's senses were: even though he had moved silently to the extent of his abilities and that his rival had his back turned, nothing seemed to escape the ears of the demon fox.

"Even if that must mean that they'll hate me, not bringing anyone here with me is my own way to protect them: I've already long decided that this issue would be resolved uniquely between you and me." Sasuke said, stepping out from the shadows.

Naruto chuckled, but nodded: he was glad the other man felt that same way too. He then took a deep breath and built up all the courage that he could muster.

"…How is Hinata-chan?"

The Uchiha wondered for a moment what to answer to that: this probably wasn't the best of times to get a nervous breakdown. He opted for a safe and delicate answer.

"She'll live…probably. The unlucky one was actually her father: when they found him, he looked like one big piece of lasagna verdi."  
"Oh." said Naruto, his appetite killed instantly.

The blond man paused at the news for a moment, then exhaled as if a huge burden had been taken off his shoulders. Apparently, nobody else but the Hyuugas themselves cared about the old dude: it was a sad fact that nevertheless saved a lot of guilt trips.

"Well…It's cruel, but…I'm quite relieved to hear that at least she's okay."  
"We don't have time, Uzumaki. The Hyuuga are coming after you: Nara can only buy us up to one hour."

Naruto grimaced and scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, I figured something like that would happen. And what are YOU doing here, Uchiha? You've come to kill me before they do?"  
"I've come to honor my word to you. Can't you show any more gratitude?"

Naruto laughed sadly at his former partner's comment.

"Thanks, I guess. How did you find me, though?"  
"Where else would you be? I knew I'd find you here, Uzumaki."  
"True…I shouldn't have expected anything less from you. But before we start, could we…?"  
"Yes, let us pay our respects."  
"Arigatou."

Sasuke stepped beside Naruto and they both took some time to meditate in silence.  
It was under the shade of these tall trees that the two men, for the first time, stood together in front of Haruno Sakura's grave. Team 7 had finally been reunited.

8 years ago, the pink-haired woman asked to be buried right here, in Konoha Garden: this was her favorite place in the world after all, and probably where she felt she would be most at peace. So, after the ritual satanic Konoha funeral, her flaming remains had then been placed to rest at the edge of Konoha's impressive opium plantation: you know, a bit like the one in front of the Emerald City, in the Wizard of Oz. Okay, so by now you're probably thinking something along the range of either "WTF!" or "Dude, that's a lot of dope!", but there are certain things you must also understand. You see, from a dying kunoichi's perspective, the idea of being surrounded by poppies -even OPIUM poppies- for all eternity still looked pretty appealing, considering your other options were to be 'recycled' or sent to the lab for jutsu testing. Or simply thrown off a cliff, if no one cared enough for you during your lifetime...because you SUCKED, for instance. Notice the huge hint and insinuation, just back there. Anyway, in a ninja village, there probably was only ONE thing harder than getting a decent burial, and that was to actually die a dignified death: all odds considered, the latter was so impossible you probably had a better chance at drowning a fish or eating a can of beans and farting your way to the moon. Seriously, just look at Orochimaru and those 4X4 jeep marks all over his body. It's so very sad.

There were probably a million of thoughts going through the two men's heads at the moment.  
For Naruto, coming back here in Konoha Garden was giving him mixed feelings: he couldn't recall having ever liked the place when he was younger, and he sure as hell didn't now. And the damn airborne pollen was making him woozy...But he also felt somewhat at peace, if not melancholic: it was one strange sensation, but for a traveler to finally feel like he's reached his home. And also, for some odd reason he couldn't place his finger on, he felt like growing a beard. RIGHT NOW.  
As for Sasuke, he simply stood silent and reminisced: 8 years, and he still felt the same, each and every time...And by that I meant non drug-induced feelings: actually, with the frequency of his visits, Sasuke had built up some sort of rudimentary immunity to opium. He just didn't think about random stuff he didn't need to. Besides, this kind of joke is already just wrong to start with.

"So, how did it feel like to be an avenger?" Sasuke finally asked.  
Hearing his rival's voice probably got Naruto back to his senses.He stared at his own hand for a while, and noisily cracked the joints by simply tensing up his fingers: that desire for revenge had made him so much stronger...and yet he didn't feel any better than when he was nothing but a weakling.  
"Terrible, Uchiha. No one should ever be placed through this kind of trial."

The two Jounins again stood side-by-side in silence, neither of them daring to break the ice: in reality, there was this one question that had been bothering the both of them for many years. Each on their side, they had been looking for their own answers, but now that it came to it, they were simply too afraid to find out if they were wrong all this time. Or that somehow, they were right.

Just WHOSE fault it was, that Sakura died.

But maybe that was one of the only things they had in common, other the fact that they were both ex-avengers: almost on every other level, these two had lived completely different lives. Sasuke was now an affiliated Jounin while Naruto was an aimless wanderer: the first was a married parent while the latter still a single, certified player. Also, as far as their fighting prowess went, they had both employed diverging but yet valid paths in order to become stronger: it was hard to tell which of them right now had the upper-hand.  
Naruto, whom trained under Jiraiya, had eventually ended up by teaching himself out of fighting experience: he now made up in brute strength and endurance what he lacked in technique and versatility. As for Sasuke, whom had trained under the supervision of the most prominent Konoha Jounins, he had finalized his own study of ninjutsu by browsing through Konoha's extensive scroll library: what he lacked in stamina and hitting power, he more than made it up in finesse and quickness.  
Their styles and approaches had been the complete inverse of one another, and thus, they had lived as destined rivals. Even more, they were naturally-born enemies.

And yet...at one point in their lives...

"Eh, do you think that if Sakura never existed, we could have been best buddies?"  
"I don't know, Uzumaki. In another lifetime, maybe: in ours, she did exist."  
"Feh…Sakura-chan…You know, I used to think that she was so beautiful that she just had to be the incarnation of some kind of flower."  
"That thought...also crossed my mind." Sasuke admitted.  
"She always kept talking about blooming flowers and all that stuff...But why is it that she had to die, Uchiha? Is the way of flowers the same as the world's?"  
"There are reasons for everything, Uzumaki. But sometimes, it's useless trying to explain it to ourselves, since we lack the wisdom to find rational answers. Just as we find many friends along our lives, many of them will eventually find their own paths: similarly, just as many lives are born, others are lost. The cycle of life isn't something that should be broken or grasped by mere mortals such as ourselves."  
"So you're saying that there was nothing we could have done...other than to watch her fade away and then return her to the earth?"

The Uchiha sighed.

"I've long pondered on that...I now believe there truly was nothing more we could have done for her at that point. Even the act of burying her had been more for our own sakes than hers, since the purpose of doing such a thing has simply been to fill our own voids with the comforting thought that maybe she would be able to reach a better place."  
"..."  
"There is something we can do, however, and that is to simply watch over the bulbs that the rose has left: experience has shown me peace can't be found anywhere else, be it by seeking revenge or…simply mourning forever. Time won't stand still, Uzumaki: not for you, not for me, not for anyone. Just like objects, feelings will erode as years fly by, taking along with them all hatred as all love. This is the conclusion I've come to."

Naruto nodded silently and chuckled, making the other man rise an eyebrow.

"You know, now that you mention it, between you and me…You might very well be the good guy, Uchiha."  
"How is that?"  
"Time…You know, us changing…Back there, when first I swore revenge on you, I really thought I'd never live it down, and that I'd hate you forever. But seriously, on those days when I traveled around the world with the perverted Sennin, Sakura was probably the LAST person on my mind. I'm telling you this 'cuz you're a pal, but I've had my share of girls in these several past years: I don't believe I even took the time to look back on Sakura's death, not even once. True, living on the edge might have been an excuse for it, but frankly, it's also because all that had happened just didn't seem real to me anymore. I was only called back in for a reality check when I had to bury the old guy myself: after that, death again seemed so very real and close to me. I was then that I remembered that I had to kill you."  
"...Do you still want to?" Sasuke inquired.

But Naruto laughed and shook his head.

"For what I did, I probably should hate myself even more. While I was out living out a life of debauchery, I've seen you taking care of a woman and a kid. Seeing them so happy by your side, it kinda made me re-think of the feelings with which you've always done everything you've done. Just why I hated you, and why things happened the way they did. And if Sakura truly went without any regrets in her life."  
"Hmmf."  
"Anyway, Uchiha? Sigh...I'll be honest with you: I'm not sure I hate you enough to go through with this anymore."

Again, an uncomfortable silence took its toll as they both paused.

"So what do you suggest we do now? That we call it all off so you can go surrender yourself?"  
"Would that make you feel any more satisfied?" Naruto smirked.  
"No." Sasuke honestly answered.  
"If we're found here together, we'll be both lynched by the Hyuuga Main House, you know. Go, it's not too late for you to go back to your family. Oh, and you'll make a fine Hokage, Uchiha."

Sasuke never thought he'd ever witness the other man concede that title: Naruto used to be so stubborn about one day becoming Hokage that hearing him talk right now was almost painful. Sure, the odds, being what they were, Sasuke was indeed headed for the Hokage seat...but unfortunately for everyone in Konoha Village, HE also had plans. There was just no way he would ever want to live unsatisfied and right now, if he turned back, he wouldn't get another chance at this.

"Thanks, but no thanks, Uzumaki. Quite frankly, if one of us has to die here, then I'd rather just find out right here and now just who, between the two of us, is the fittest for that title."

Upon hearing this, the blond man first looked up, very surprised. A moment then passed before he genuinely laughed out and powerfully slapped the Uchiha on the back in a friendly manner. And almost made the slightly frailer man stumble forward.

"Now that's more like it! You're right, I don't think I'd be able to go to Hell peacefully either, if we never figured that one out! We're running out of time, so let's do it!"

Naruto started excitedly punching into the air, and then dragged Sasuke into a clearing. For the first time since the blond man had passed the Konoha gates, it seemed to the Uchiha that his past friend was finally himself again: that same big and loud idiot that used to be on his team.

He could have said 'welcome back' at that point, but he simply smiled.

"By the way, Uchiha...She looks so much like her mother. What did you name your brat anyway?"  
"Sakura."  
Naruto gave his friend a surprised yet amused look.  
"Sakura? You just took her mother's name?"  
"Yeah. Sakura. Uchiha Sakura." Sasuke simply said, but not without an hint of pride.  
"…Figures, it's a beautiful name. It's probably perfect for her."  
They laughed together, lost in a brief moment of nostalgy as they revived a bit of their childhood connection. And then it was time to get serious.  
Sasuke was the first to stop laughing, and his rival soon followed. They frowned.

"Let's start."

The process was simple: the 2 men would each walk back a few steps and then basically start off again from where they had left off. But this time around, neither of them would wear their Konoha headbands, since this wasn't about being ninjas anymore. It was about pride and everything the word macho stood for.  
In a single foreign handseal, Naruto released the first level of his seal: it didn't last very long, but the air surrounding the blond man momentary seemed to crackle with energy. Even from his distance, Sasuke could feel the neat change in atmospheric pressure: Naruto's chakra reserve, even at first level, was frankly enormous. The Uchiha whistled, visibly impressed, and Naruto smugly smiled back.

This was definitely the Naruto he had known when he was younger, in both personnality and chakra signature, Sasuke thought. Naruto Uzumaki, the Demon Fox: his only true rival.

"No holding back, then." he managed to say with a smirk.

Sasuke didn't need any of that flashiness: he simply blinked, and one second his eyes were black, the next they had taken on a familiar red glow. The Sharingan had become like a second nature to him.

Naruto started hopping on his feet: soon enough after he got into it, he swung out his arms and broke into a loose and moving stance. Sasuke didn't miss that his rival had already tensed up his hands into claw-like forms: this was the constantly evolving fighting style that Naruto had developed and the Uchiha knew perfectly well just how much a single instant of inattention could cost him. Naruto rose his arm and waved the tip of his fingers, motioning to his opponent to make the first move.

"I'll let you hit first. Don't disappoint me, all right?…Sasuke!"

The Uchiha responded to the taunt with a grin: it had been a long time since he had a good match and he was definitely going to enjoy this. Even with the obvious disadvantage in range, the _Byako_'s self-confidence was unaffected and his eyes did not even show a fraction of hesitation : unarmed, he was still more than a worthy opponent for the _Tenken_. Sasuke tightened his grip excitedly on the hilt of his katana,Kusanagi, and lowered himself into a drawing stance.

"Don't underestimate me. Ikuzo…Naruto!"

It wasn't only because of the airborne opium surrounding them: no, that was a mere 50 of the reason. Leave some blame to the warrior's adrenaline rush and public high schools.

But for 2 people with only death awaiting for them, they were actually feeling pretty good.

* * *

_You simply didn't mess around with an Uchiha: that was like an unspoken rule, unless you were masochistic enough to enjoy the feeling of being used as a floor-moping tool. Trust me, it's something unpleasant enough to make even wedgies seem blissful in comparison. Whatever. The point is that, in his blind rage, Naruto had completely forgotten about it: with a yell, he had already tackled Sasuke at mid-level and was now running insanely towards a wall, intent on slamming his opponent's spine into it._

_Tsk-tsk. Bad move.  
All the while Naruto was crying, Sasuke wasn't quite sure of the course of action to take: he wasn't used to that sort of situation. But the moment the fox-boy had initiated an attack, this had become nothing more than a familiar brawl to the Uchiha, and he reacted swiftly by grappling his opponent: letting himself fall on his back, the Anbu then slammed his heel into Naruto's body and performed a back throw, propelling his opponent down the hall. Naruto fell hard on one shoulder, but he was nevertheless experienced enough to roll after the initial impact and recover on one of his knees: the maneuver only took him long enough to realize that Sasuke had already gracefully hopped back to his feet._

"Give it up: at your level, there's nothing you can do against me. Just how many beatings are you looking for today?"  
"Shut up! SHUT UP!"

The fox-boy charged again, but this time around Sasuke was ready: he wouldn't only use Naruto's inferior power against himself this time. Dodging Naruto's reckless haymaker with a simple sidestep, he immediately countered the Fox-boy with low side piercing kick to the gut. During the short momentum as Naruto found himself both stunned and bent in two by the unexpected blow, Sasuke immediately followed with a rising kick to the chin so powerful that it literally jerked his opponent's head back and lifted them both off the ground. The aerial onslaught continued, and before Naruto could even recover enough breath to scream, he had already been sent crashing into the wall by a flying roundhouse. There was absolutely no contest: when the Uchiha got serious, it was no use trying to even compare their difference in levels. The dizzy Naruto began vomiting blood, and soon afterwards felt his clothes being nailed to the wall by a barrage of kunais: he had been completely overpowered and was now just as immobilized.

"Cough! D...Damn you, Sasuke! Abusing the weak, just because you're stronger…! Do you even CARE what happened to Sakura-chan!"  
"Shut up, punk. How would you know how I feel?"

Naruto spat in his direction, but Sasuke ignored him and walked towards the small metallic object he had previously dropped. Picking it up, he then squatted and held it right in front of the struggling boy's face.

"Now, look at this, and tell me what it is. Sakura returned it to me, and her last request was for me to give it to her best friend. How would you know how I feel right now?"

Naruto blinked a few times, and finally realized what he had under his nose was a golden ring with a small diamond.

"Just how the hell…would you know…?" The Uchiha repeated, this time weakness a bit more detectable in his voice.  
But even this couldn't shake off the fox-boy's bitterness.

"You killed Sakura-chan."  
"I did. It was my fault. I killed her."

Those words enraged the blond boy: with a roar, he tore his arms free from the Uchiha's kunais, ripping his own jacket and slightly cutting himself in the process. He then grabbed one of the short projectile weapons and angrily stroke towards Sasuke's throat with the blade…

The kunai's edge had already slightly penetrated into the Anbu's neck, drawing a bit of blood, when Naruto stopped his movement. Sasuke HAD seen that coming: why didn't he even react?

"...You deserve to die, Sasuke."  
"Then kill me."  
"You won't resist? I'm not kidding around." Naruto said, as he jammed the sharp instrument a little deeper into the other boy's flesh: the look in Sasuke's eyes didn't waver.  
"Kill me, and be done."

Naruto could have complied and done it right there and then: Sasuke's life was completely at his mercy. But somehow, he couldn't bring himself to: the Anbu's eyes were simply too…aggravating.

"Sasuke, you damn coward…YOU'RE RUNNING AWAY?.?"

The Uchiha's eyes widened at the other boy's unexpected outburst: he was too surprised to even try and regain balance as he was suddenly kicked back from where he was standing, awkwardly falling on his butt. Naruto jumped back to his feet and towered menacingly over Sasuke: in an instant, the roles had been inverted.

"Sakura's last wish…Uchiha, you're just going to run away from it?"

By now, Naruto's tone had turned glacial: no matter how deep he looked into memory, Sasuke couldn't remember ever hearing the blond boy call him by his last name.

"You've got a baby in there, too…Tsunade-occhan told me it was a girl. You have a daughter now…Who's going to take care of her if you're going to die here? You're a sad, despicable man…"

Naruto loosened his own grip, the kunai clanking loudly on the tiled floor at his rival's feet.

"I'm not such a nice guy that I'd kill you when you're so willing to die: if you're not going to offer any resistance now, I'll come back later, when you'll actually have something to lose. We'll see if you'll feel the same way then."  
"Naruto…you…"

Sasuke was silenced by the fox-boy's sandal as it was ruthlessly driven into his face. Naruto was now shaking uncontrollably, doing all he could to contain his own anger: this wasn't a moment where you wanted to contradict him.

"Listen and listen good, Uchiha. As planned, I'm going to leave with old Jiraiya tonight, but mark my words: I'll come back for you someday, and don't you DARE run away when that time comes. I swear…that I'll avenge Sakura-chan."

Naruto stomped away. It was Sasuke's turn to blink in disbelief a few times.

"WELL, UCHIHA?.? WILL YOU FIGHT ME THEN?.?"  
The Uchiha wiped the little blood there was on his lips and rose. He sadly closed his eyes and nodded to the other boy, whom had his back to him.

"...You have my word as a swordsman…Uzumaki."

* * *

Meanwhile, things weren't so hot for Shikamaru, Neiji and Shino. They had somehow managed to drag the idiotic Hyuugas far away from Konoha Garden by resourcefully using their lawnmowers, but after losing them somewhere very deep into the forest of Doom, the Hyuugas finally remembered they WERE Hyuugas and activated their Byakugan: this made any further stalling almost impossible without our friends getting detected. Shino intelligently commented on the situation. 

"We're truly fucked."  
"Indeed." Neiji nodded. "And this place is giving me the creeps…I didn't think we'd ever step back in here after that survival training with the butter knives."

This caused the three men to go into a deep reflection: thinking about it, the only reason why they had actually survived that crazy training was because Shikamaru had been the knife wielder for their group…and more importantly, they had been lucky enough to have the annoying Konohamaru assigned with them. Lucky, YES, but not in the way that you might think: you see, what happened was that Shikamaru came up with the ingenious plan to kill Konohamaru and feed parts of him to any wild animals that would attack the group, in order to tame them. Yes, it was incredibly disgusting and cruel, but since NO ONE cared about the snotty little kid, heck, the guys didn't even hesitate a second before putting the plan into action: ultimately, thanks to that, all 4 passable members of the team survived the grueling survival training with the 'sacrifice' of a single useless one. And that's not all folks: since this had also ridded everyone forever of the late Sandaime's grandson, it earned our boys a major thumbs-up from Tsunade-sama, whom then propelled them into Anbu level for their invaluable service to the village. Look it as you may, but it had been a pretty sweet deal: no one ever questioned Shikamaru's command after that.  
Coming back to our present story though, Neiji was shaking his head.

"I sometimes REALLY wonder if my monthly paycheck is worth all this…So, what do we do now, Nara?" Neiji asked Shikamaru, while keeping watch of their surroundings with his own Byakugan.

For him, taking on his own clan was giving away mixed feelings: sure, it was exhilarating to rebel against the Main House, but if he got caught he would be in for the greatest curse seal spanking of his lifetime.

"I'll admit to you guys, I DID hope they'd forget about their own Byakugans for a bit longer. They seem to be particularly smart today."  
"Can't we, like, knock them out with some bugs or simply capture them all with the Kagemane no Jutsu? We're in a dark forest and there are both plenty of bugs and shadows around here…"

Shikamaru shook his head.

"Shino's bugs aren't ordinary insects: they each carry a certain amount of his own chakra, making them all the more detectable by something like the Byakugan. As for my Kagemane, it is chakra-based, so it can also be seen coming from a mile away. The Hyuugas' Heavenly Spin leave no openings to these forms of attacks."  
"How about capturing the WHOLE forest, so that there's nowhere left to run?"

Shikamaru spat.

"Baka, my stamina's not what it used to be. And I doubt that even in its prime my technique could have had that sort of range."  
"Okay then. There must be SOMETHING left we can do with the lawnmowers…?"  
"Eh, these things are all-purpose tools, not miracle machines."  
"So technically, you're saying we're done for." Shino stated matter-of-factly, readjusting the wig on his head.

He just loved that afro: whereas most Aburames disgusted females because they had millions of bugs inhabiting their bodies, Shino lately got more ladies than he could handle. When combining together the looks of his new afro and the Aburame shades, he was simply OOZING of major sexiness: understandably, that wig had hardly ever even left his head since the completion of the aforementioned mission.

"Not quite, I always have a backup plan." Shikamaru said, snapping his fingers.  
"Care to explain?" Neiji asked, a bit incredulous.  
"The Hyuuga bloodline's ability is the Byakugan, which technically is 360 degrees vision, right? But from what I've seen of you, Neiji, there's actually a blind spot at the very back of your head. So, we could say the Byakugan is more like 350 degrees vision."  
"Um…I think I'm PERFECTLY aware of that." Neiji said, rolling his eyes.  
"So the point is this: if somehow we can direct your clan's attention to somewhere at the very opposite side of Konoha Garden, their blind spots will point exactly TOWARDS Konoha Garden. And thus, they won't be able to detect Sasuke or Naruto's chakra signatures, which is the purpose of this mission."  
"Technically, yes."  
"And if we pull them away from said Garden, that blind spot will also become wider and wider as the distance grows larger. I calculate that from where we are right now, these blind spots should be at least as large as Konoha Garden."

Neiji slapped his fist into his free hand in realization.

"I see! That's a great idea! But just how are we supposed to draw their attention long enou…?"  
"And finally, you do realize that 96 percent of our village is gay and that thus, that percentage also applies to your clan, right?" Shikamaru continued.  
"…What the fuck has that got to do with anything?"  
"Basically, just as long as you guys keep your heads wrapped up in something, no one'll never find out your identities. Trust me, it's gonna work."  
"…Hey, now just a damn minute! I THINK I see where you're going…This is your plan?.? Oh my God, it REEKS! Is this really the best you can think of ?.?"  
"Yes." Said Shikamaru, very seriously. "And let me remind you that I am your commanding officer: I won't TOLERATE insubordination.

Now both of you strip naked and start running."

* * *

**Author's notes:**** Yes, the plotholes in this story are larger than a gay pornstar's asshole. Seriously, as the author, I already knew that.**

**Many thanks nevertheless to all of you who took time to review! Writing this stuff isn't easy!**

**_Guns n' Roses - Don't Cry_**


	6. Omake: The Nothing Years

**Omake - **_The Nothing Years: Filling the Void with Stupidity and Pointless Plotholes _

"And now, moving on the subject, I'll teach you something that every man needs to master in order to live a full, satisfying life. And that is...THE ART OF GROPING."

Naruto thought for a moment that he had heard wrong, but apparently those were Jiraiya's exact words: and any doubts the fox-boy might have had in that fleeting moment almost instantly subsided as the old man started 'demonstrating' on the tree trunk just beside him.

"Now observe very carefully as I make a subtle grabbing motion at a supposedly well-endowed female: the secret to this move's smoothness purely resides in the wrist. Also notice how I must make good use of my fingers in order to well feel and prod every inch of said woman's soft and beautiful bottom. Just like this...Oh yeah...Oh-oh-ooh yeah...That's the stuff..."

It was just a bit weird, watching the Legendary Senin lustfully rub a tree trunk with gentle upward and downward strokes. But just a tiny bit. Probably.

All right, you got me: I lied. Although I COULD say right here that Naruto was totally unfazed by Jiraiya' behavior, then again, who would I be kidding, right? If not gross, then the sight was simply one of the strangest, oddest things the fox-boy had ever laid his eyes on! Urgh! No words could even BEGIN to describe to us our friend's state of mind in his current predicament: after all, we're all here, safely sitting in front of our computers, while the poor guy was practically riding shotgun with the Perverted Senin with all doors locked shut. Notice that while we're finally getting a glimpse of what Naruto had to live through for 8 years, it wasn't pretty.

"..."  
"Ya like it, huh, biatch! Biatch! Who's yer daddy!" Jiraiya continued.

Up to this point, Naruto had tried dismissing and blocking all the visual information his eyes caught from registering on into his brain. This was something mostly done out of respect for his traveling companion since, after all, Jiraiya was both his teacher and senior: so even though Naruto STRONGLY suspected that over these past few years Jiraiya had turned senile, he tried not to voice his opinion about it. Oh God, he TRIED. But during the most unbearable moments, the fox-boy truly regretted that he hadn't been conditioned to torture during his time back at the Academy. Because THIS, unfortunately, was one such moment.  
Where am I going with all this? Well, the moment Jiraiya started SPANKING the tree trunk, Naruto just knew that he either had to say something or find salvation by poking his own eyes out. It was THAT bad. And you know what? That's not even the scary part in all this: at the rate the old man was 'deluding' himself, he was INDEED going to make that tree his bitch if he wasn't stopped beforehand. Let us not even develop on that eventuality.

"Please stop, old man. That is really, REALLY disturbing."  
"Quiet, kid. We've been living in this forest like animals for the last few months, without a single woman in sight. I have to do this to keep myself sane."

And although Naruto didn't like to admit it, Jiraiya did have a point: after all, they hadn't stopped by a village in a while, and right now gender diversity wasn't exactly the most accessible thing either. Not that they could REALLY go to a village, by the way: since they were now both wanted for shoplifting and innumerable eat-and-runs, you could probably imagine just how the Akatsuki wasn't the only group hunting after their collective asses anymore. And the fact that Jiraiya WAS a perverted Senin didn't help much, either: considering just how many seeds the old man had planted during his lifetime, the child support he had to pay in each town would simply KILL Naruto's already light wallet if they didn't lay low everywhere they went. Being poor sucked, but it sucked really bad when your own village doesn't even know the meaning of the word 'welfare'.

Sigh…Oh well. You could say that those years on the road were harsh for the two of them, but it's not like it was a time completely devoid of good things, too: there was a whole other side to the story. You see, while the fox-boy did put up with a lot of Jiraiya's dysfunctions, it was also because he fully realized that the old guy somewhat did the same in return: for instance, why was Jiraiya even sticking around with him? Think about it: the Akatsuki wasn't directly chasing after the old man, and certainly did NOT desire an open confrontation with a Legendary Nin if they could help it. So basically, if the perverted Senin wasn't so inclined at protecting the Kyubi's medium, he could probably be resting in a red lantern district right now and knocking himself out without a care in the world. The fact that he had even given up all those things to live and die as Naruto's guardian and mentor was proof enough of his self-sacrifice: it's not something that would leave a fellow Konoha ninja indifferent, and certainly not Naruto.

Although his pride would never let him utter out the words, even at the very end, the boy admired Jiraiya more than anyone in the world. Over the years, the Senin had become both his role model and the parent figure he never had: being given the chance of becoming one of the Legendary Nin's apprentice would forever be rated of one of the highest points in Naruto's life.

But that's for later, though. Right now, Naruto was still a teenager and Jiraiya was still very alive. Maybe TOO alive.

"Aw, for the love of...What's all this about anyway? You told me you would teach me a cool jutsu!" Naruto started whining.  
"I WILL teach you all right, but only once YOU finish this training exercise! Now get your spunky little ass to that tree and do just like I showed you."

Naruto shuddered in disgust at the thought, but nevertheless placed his hand on the tree trunk's rugged surface: right now, he had to get stronger and learn new jutsus, by ANY MEANS possible. Even if it implied...ugh...going through this. So, taking a deep breath, Naruto did what he had to: he built up all of his courage and began to delicately feel up the tree. First, upward. Then downward. Up. Down. Up. Down...

"Put more feeling into it, dammit! More rhythm! Make LOVE to the tree!" Jiraiya hysterically yelled in Naruto's back as he rhythmically pumped his own pelvis back and forth.  
"Someone shoot me…"  
At that exact moment, the young ninja honestly wanted to die.

Finally, after 30 minutes of non-stop groping, Jiraiya found himself satisfied with his pupil's performance and stopped him: by then, Naruto's urge to throw up had already been long replaced with an incredible feeling of stupidity. He had never come across such a shameful training in his entire life, and he STILL didn't understand just how it could be useful to him someday. Jiraiya, on the other hand, had never looked so proud. Even more than after Naruto had masterized the Rasengan, actually: the Senin was practically moved to tears.

"Naruto my boy, you have the talent." the old man said, beaming with pride. "I have long hesitated to do this, but it seems you are truly fit for me to pass on my knowledge to you: I shall now bestow upon you the most secret of the secret jutsus I have ever created."  
Naruto listened intently, with a look a anticipation in his eyes.  
"The Touton no Jutsu."  
"YES, SENSEI!" Naruto bowed enthusiastically.

And so it was all worth it, in the end: they then walked together toward the sunset, basking in their now unspoken but commonly set goal of turning the world into a Come Come Paradise. From that moment on, Naruto would slowly be seduced unto walking down Jiraiya's dangerous legacy of debauchery and shameless perversion: this fated day would mark the birth of a new legend.

* * *

Even after all these years, Sasuke still didn't know how to handle this: there were definitely moments when he couldn't understand this woman at all. One moment, she was just very happy, and the next she was throwing a mood tantrum and breaking stuff. HIS stuff, to be precise. The death count was starting to get pretty impressive, actually: by now she had already broken three of his Uchiha lamps, torn his favorite sofa into pieces, shot his 2 pet elephants, planted an axe into his favorite poster of Konohagure's pop idol Anko and ripped into pieces all his jutsu scrolls. Not to mention the extremely rare _Ninjas Illustrated: Tsunade Swimsuit Edition_ he was hiding in there, too. What? C'mon, let's face it: although Tsunade was old, a picture of her in a tight bikini was still PRICELESS by standards. And if he didn't have such a reputation to protect, watching his precious magazine being torn into tiny little pieces would have seriously made Sasuke want to fall to his knees and start crying: but instead, he just added the newly found despair to his ever-growing list of pent up feelings. 

Besides, considering that Ino had the bad habit of completing her destructive pattern by attacking HIM to finish venting her anger, he had a lot more to worry about right now. And it was in moments like these that having a nindo simply sucked, because not fighting back at a woman like Ino could simply spell your doom. Seriously, we're talking about someone here who has absolutely no problems whatsoever at hitting innocent people with a big, metallic and shiny baseball bat. Ouch.

So you're probably wondering by now just HOW Sasuke managed to survive the Ino onslaught for all these years. Sure, he was a great ninja, but that's not the entire reason: as a matter of fact, it had little to do with anything. No, actually what really happened was that after a while, Sasuke realized that all he had to do on Ino's bad days was to simply wear 7 sets of clothes on himself and then go sit on the sofa, waiting for the storm to pass. As you can probably imagine, with that much protection, even if Ino WAS to repeatedly slap him with a hockey stick the extra padding would radically soften every single one of the blows. And although up to this day it's still a real wonder how that maneuver managed to fool her at ALL, the Uchiha just figured she thought that he was getting fat. With his sexy metabolism, she should have known better.

By the way, since we're speaking of fat...

"Hey, how's everyone going!" the cheerful Chouji said, as he opened the door without knocking and waited for the warm welcome that would never come.  
"Duck." Sasuke simply said.

And duck Chouji did, just in time to dodge the table sent flying in his direction: the piece of furniture then crashed just in front of Shikamaru's feet, whom had wisely kept his distance from the doorway.  
The two friends immediately looked at Sasuke with a "WTF!" expression on their face, but the latter subtly pointed towards the calendar with his eyes. Following the Uchiha's hint, Shikamaru nodded in agreement, dragged Chouji outside and gently closed the door. They then started to run like HELL as gunfire began to erupt in the Uchiha household.

"Well, someone's surely in a bad mood," Chouji noted as the two of them finally reached the other end of the village and stopped running.  
"I told you so," said Shikamaru, shaking his head. "We simply do NOT visit Ino at this time of the month."

* * *

"He's already been here a week. I did try kicking him out at first, but apparently he was completely stuck in that position. So, well...as long as he paid for his drinks, I just maintained him alive by feeding him with a straw." the bartender said.  
"Thank you. We'll take over now." the Hyuuga answered to the elder man, bowing slightly.  
The old guy bowed back: he was glad that two Anbus had finally come to take care of that troublesome customer. Well seriously, it's not that he caused all that much trouble, but being constantly faced with such a repulsive-looking man for the whole last week had almost been nightmarish. Ugh. But luckily it was over now: the old man could now finally go into the back and re-focus on sharpening those 2 feet long metal claws of his. After all, the Ramen Shop owner wanted a word with him tonight and he had better be prepared. 

"...Well, let's get to it, Tenten." Neiji said as he cracked his fingers.  
"He's disappeared for a week but...now that we found him, why am I not surprised?" Tenten sighed as the both of them proceeded at pulling Rock Lee's face off the bar.  
"Since he got that Drunken Taijutsu as an excuse, I guess he just wanted to make up for lost time." the Hyuuga reasoned. "Thinking back about those prohibition days, it's actually kinda ironic."  
"Yeap." the young woman nodded, nostagically. "Sigh...yeap."

A quick analysis of the problem at hand revealed that apparently, Rock Lee's thick eyebrows had gotten glued shut to the wooden surface by dried alcohol: moving him now had become fairly difficult, if not impossible. And even so, he was himself drunk enough to just keep on snoring and drooling away, even with all his teammates' joint efforts at pulling him free.

Finally, Tenten gave up and threw her hands in the air.  
"Argh, it's hopeless! There's no moving him. What should we do?"  
Neiji pondered on the question for a while.  
"...I just thought of something. Let me ask you a question, Tenten: did you ever like Rock Lee's eyebrows?"  
"No." Tenten instantly answered.  
"...Oh. Well then, where's the problem?"  
And at that, Neiji grabbed the back of Rock Lee's head and gave it a hard tug.

Never in the history of Konohagure would such a scream be heard: resonating throughout a 5 miles radius, it would be at the same time both so loud and high-pitched that every single glass window in the Village would crack. Chronicled on paper for the eons to come, it would be forever remembered as the Cry of the Browless Chinese Dude.

* * *

"How's your rehabilitation going, Kiba-kun?"  
"..."  
"I don't think Kiba feels like talking about it right now, Hinata." Shino noted.  
"Oh...Gomen!" 

They resumed eating, but Kiba kept on looking furtively back towards the cupboard, where he just KNEW Hinata kept a small reserve of Soldier Pills. The withdrawal effects were on to him and he had to get one. NOW.

"...Say, you've become a pretty good cook, Hinata." said Shino, just to change the subject.

But both him and Hinata were still looking at their friend, whom was currently staring obsessively at the cupboard: they had been specifically warned by the SPA (Soldier Pills Anonymous) society not to let him out of sight for even a second. Apparently, Kiba had developed a very serious drug problem, and the symptoms were even worse because he happened to be an Inuzuka. You see, the aftereffects of Soldier pill overdoses were particularly severe when dealing with these dog-lovers, since it removed all their inhibitions: so when Kiba entered hyper mode for instance, he also became incredibly prone at chasing after cars while barking or even at taking a leak on random pieces of furniture. Understandably, both Shino and Hinata were very worried right now. Especially Hinata, since it was her house.

"Arigatou, Shino-kun. Well, since Nara-san keeps on forcing his house chores on us, I've gotten a chance at trying my hand at cooking."  
"I see. You'll make a great wife to someone, someday."

Hinata furiously blushed at the comment, maybe not so much because it was a compliment but of what it implied. She didn't even want to think about getting married yet…Well, neither did Shino, but their situations were slightly different: in the afro-haired Anbu's case, it was mostly because he was simply having too much fun as Konoha's most prominent bachelor ever since Sasuke was taken off the auctions. Really. Hinata's problem, on the other hand, was more delicate. How could we put this…? It was more because a part of her had seemingly died ever since…well, ever since HE left the village. Things just weren't the same anymore, and mostly, she didn't really want to think about it.

"It was just a compliment, Hinata." Shino added, noticing the crimson shade on his friend's face.  
"A…Arigatou, Shino-kun."

She managed to smile, and he did the same. Or at least she thought he did: with the way Shino dressed, it was actually kinda hard to tell. But just before Hinata could start pondering on the existence of her teammate's fashion sense, Akamaru suddenly started barking: realizing they had been inattentive for a whole 5 seconds, the two friends both quickly looked back at where Kiba was SUPPOSED to be, only to realize that the dog-boy had already vanished.

"JUST ONE! JUST OOOOOOOONE!" Kiba desperately yelled as Shino sprung from his chair and swiftly tackled him while he was reaching for the cupboard.  
"Get a hold of yourself, man!" Shino said, while trying to immobilize him.  
"NOOOO! LET GO OF ME!"  
"Fight it, Inuzuka! Fight the urge!"

Hinata delicately covered her mouth and giggled happily: with friends like these, maybe she could wait for a little while.

She could probably wait for as long as it took Naruto to come back to her.

* * *

There was a great debate going on right now in the Jounin lounge: sitting in front of the TV, Kakashi, Gai, Asuma and Kurenai were arguing on which movie to watch. And it was taking them FOREVER. 

"So tell me again," asked Kakashi, "why do you two absolutely refuse to watch '_The Santa Clause_'?"  
"Let's put it this way: I NEVER want to see another red Santa outfit for the rest of my life," answered Gai, with Asuma nodding approvingly.  
"Guys, it's a family movie. Even little kids could watch this," the Sharingan-wielder insisted.  
But he shouldn't have tested his friends' patience.  
"YOU weren't even there when it happened! I was surrounded by Santa Clauses with sugar nunchuckus!"  
"As for me, some glasses-wearing reindeer went rabid and bit my foot!"  
Remembering the attack where both Gai and Asuma had to be hospitalized afterwards, for once Kakashi felt kinda bad about his own tardiness. And his speechlessness could also be explained by the fact that the name 'Kabuto' suddenly came to his mind for no apparent reason: let's just say that Orochimaru had a lot of Xmas disguises.  
"Aren't you guys exaggerating a little bit? I don't remember any of that happening," Kurenai finally said.

The room fell dead quiet as everyone simply LOOKED at Kurenai.

"Fine," Kakashi finally sighed. "We'll find another movie. What do you guys wanna watch?"  
"How about '_Rambo_'?" suggested Asuma. "That was a great movie."  
"Yeah! I loved that movie! It was so darn hilarious!" Gai approved excitingly.  
"The guy was just stupidly running around with machine guns and grenades! Such an amateur, that's not how you're gonna kill a whole lot of people!"  
"It's so funny how they comically transposed warfare into something dramatic and unpleasant!"  
"You're right! If it was us, we could have probably skipped all the useless talking and caused like 5 times more destruction!" chuckled Kakashi.  
"Wait a minute, guys. Wasn't '_Rambo_' supposed to be a SATIRE about war?" Kurenai noted.

Once again, the room fell dead quiet as everyone simply LOOKED at Kurenai.

* * *

Kisame grumbled. Okay, so FINE: his Samahada was unsharpenable. And considering just how rough the thing was, he didn't know why he even tried in the first place. 

"Oh well," he thought. "I guess I can still bludgeon people to death with this baby. And besides, it probably matches my looks better."

That's right: just like his sword, Kisame had a very unique look, both scaly and as vicious-looking as a shark. Which is a strange thing, considering there was no one ELSE in the Hoshigaki lineage that looked like a shark. And since his father looked perfectly human, then just why was he himself so different? That was indeed food for though: I mean, the Hoshigaki patriarch was just a regular ninja himself, and lived a pretty normal life too. There was nothing really worth mentioning about him, except maybe the fact that he did have this odd habit of going to the water park a lot...Kisame suddenly paused as an horrific idea passed through his mind. Water park? Fish tanks? SHARK tanks? It suddenly dawned upon Kisame that he never even knew his mother. GASP! What if...?

"Hey, Kisame. Wanna go bowling?"

The shark-man was pulled out from his thoughts as his Akatsuki partner, Uchiha Itachi, came into the room. And for some reason, bowling didn't sound half bad to Kisame, but then again maybe he was just bored. Or maybe he had felt a bit grateful to the other man for stopping his mind right in its tracks: many things, after all, were better left unknown.

"Sure. I'm in," he answered to the Uchiha.  
"Great. So, are you going to play with the SMALL balls, or the BIG balls?"

Upon hearing this, Kisame could only stare open-mouthed at Itachi, his own expression suddenly turned into a mask of shock and horror. As for Itachi himself, he missed why his partner reacted this way and so he just smiled evilly as per habit, making matters even worse because it looked suggestive. Maybe only a minute passed in silence, but it definitely felt more like ten.

"Forget it." Kisame finally said, and went back to futilely sharpening his sword.  
"Huh? Why is that Kisame? You don't feel like it anymore?"  
"No. And I just remembered why I SWORE I would never play anything with you ever again."

**

* * *

**

**Author's note: It's sad that not many people will read this fic anymore, considering the length it reached without going into a specific direction yet…but still, I don't mind. I do write this for my own enjoyment, after all, but reviews are still appreciated, since it keeps me aware of if there's actually someone out there who's even reading this. At least I can get a lesson out of this, though: make shorter chapters, since no one bothers reading long stories unless they have a significant number of reviews. It's like a quality TAG, I tell ya! A TAAAAAG!**

**Other than that, now that the Naruto manga is in the Uchiha Ark, I feel like a real ass for making fun of the whole Itachi killing thing. I'll have to re-see some things about Sasuke, but most of the quirks have already been made. We'll have to live with that. **

Some of you have mentionned that my writing style is tiring, confusing, etc. But that's pretty normal, since it's an experimental hybrid thingie between humor and drama: it's not a very orthodox style. Since ideas keep jumping from one pole to another, of course that it gets tiring after a while. But I'll keep that in mind and try to watch it from now on.

Till next time! Whenever the heck that is.

**Hmm...I didn't really write this chapter listening to anything, so here's a nice little piece of Jrock from '**_Otogizoushi_**', for those of you who've never seen the anime:**

**Gomes the Hitman - Ashita wa Kyou To Onaji Mirai (trans: Today's just like Yesterday)**


	7. Chapter 5 PART 1: Crisis!

**Author's note: A few chapters back, some of you may remember that I said something about time-jumping in this fic being determined by the chapter numbers, right? Well, scrap that. Scrap ALL that. I've been raking my mind for some time now, trying to write up a new Young Naruto chapter…but then things got complicated when I realized it would mostly have to center on Naruto and Hinata. Now this brings us to the issue of 'romance' within this fic: I know the majority here wouldn't mind that kind of chapter, but then again some of you probably would. As for me, I find 'romance' devoid of cheese and corniness to be something quite difficult to write: so until l find a way to do just that, well, I'll just have to skip the 'flashback' chapters. C'mon ladies, cut me some slack here. **

**In all previous chapters I already had to balance out a lot of things just in order to keep most readers interested: be it cheap shots, melodrama or gratuitous violence. Please remember that while I am trying very hard to keep everyone happy, I am not writing for a specific audience of fangirls/fanboys either: this fic targets just about anyone who shares my warped sense of humor. Definitely not for hardcore Itachi groupies…nor Kurenai fans either, for that matter. Wait a minute, do Kurenai fans even EXIST out there? I'm actually starting to wonder. But if you DO happen to be one, however, then you might…uh…want to skip this chapter in particular. **

**Anyway…while I think about how to put together that Young Naruto chapter, try to enjoy this one instead. **

**As a side note, Tsunade's also definitely one of my favorites characters since it's so fun to mess around with her. Big thumbs up goes to Masashi-sensei for managing to sneak her into Shonen Jump, even though her loose gi's obviously nothing more than an excuse to create perpetual cleavage shots. Dude, now THAT'S what I'm talking about. **

* * *

**  
Chapter 5** Part 1– _Crisis! Final Showdown at the Hidden Sound Village _

Just like the most vicious of cycles, the Great Serpent's reign of terror could never truly end. And once again…once again Orochimaru was rising up from the dead, with diabolical plans of revenge against Konohagure on his mind! MWAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!

So…yeah.

Not that it really came as a great surprise to anyone, mind you. No one exactly knew the how, or the WHY for that matter, but evil bastards usually possessed that strange type of innate resilience which enabled them to get up and come back for more punishment, even long after the good guys could have sworn they killed them for good. Orochimaru, sadly, was no exception.

You see, although in normal times perhaps regular individuals would have gotten medals for this kind of commendable persistence, this particular case had gotten just too darn…well, ANNOYING. Our slithering friend here had gotten to a point where no amount of manga-esque sappy background stories could any longer keep on justifying his erratic behavior. So WHAT if he was a freak whom had lacked both parental and peer affection as a child due to his abnormally long tongue? Many Konoha villagers have been through worse childhoods, so it was no damn good reason for a guy his age to try and get attention now by running around being a prick. It didn't give him any right to desecrate the corpses of brave fallen Konoha warriors, although most Konoha villagers did that traditionally at funerals anyway. And that didn't really explain why he wore purple lipstick, although the fact that he grew up in Konoha village could say a lot. It was a proven fact that that 'type' of entourage could really do things to your mind.

But the point here was that although other people out there were trying to get lives, Orochimaru wasn't making it particularly easy on them. Tsunade, for one, had no time for that kind of nonsense: true, she was perhaps perpetually bound to him as another of the Legendary Nins, but that didn't mean she had to or even wanted to associate with him. Now what the lady wanted, you see, was a goddamn BREAK: no sweat, she already had a freakin' village of nutcases to run without having even more issues to deal with. Seriously, imagine having to run a ninja Village known by the whole world as 'the Fruit Basket'. Geez. With that kind of stress imposed on them, it's no wonder that most Hokages didn't even live all that long to start with.

As a bit of history, there was first something an outsider had to understand in order to fully comprehend the Hidden Leaf's culture: the fact that while in theory being a Hokage officially meant dying FOR the Village, if anything all Hokages had dug themselves an early grave because the Village had somehow indirectly killed THEM instead. Seriously. The first Hokage had died an hippie's death, from a drug overdose: his own plantation's success had unfortunately also been his own doom. The second Hokage for his part had died after tripping down the stairs in his own house: but while that didn't exactly kill him, he was sent to the hospital for treatment, where some underpaid nurse accidentally finished him off. As for the Fourth Hokage, he had met his doom 24 years ago, in the largest threat Konoha Village had ever encountered: the Kyubi's very random and still unexplained attack on the Village. A rather unfortunate fellow, the Fourth Hokage had then been reluctantly attached to a grandfather clock and desperately catapulted at the monster when the villagers ran out of sizeable boulders for ammunition: an action which by the way proved wrong once and for all the myth that tying an Hokage after a projectile made it any stronger. When the maneuver obviously didn't work, with Konoha's Yellow Flash's predictable transformation into Konoha's Red Splat on the Kyubi's silky fur coat, the Villagers began catapulting newborn babies at the Demon Fox instead.

Yes, it was retarded. Even moreso than that whole ugly business with grandfather clocks. But it WORKED.

From the village records, it was determined that the rain of bawling kids had soon made the Kyubi's eardrums implode, making it lose its sense of balance: the Demon had then tripped and knocked itself unconscious on a jeep that the young Jiraiya, Orochimaru and Tsunade accidentally kamikazed into it, while driving in a drunken stupor after a wild night at the pub. Seriously, considering how only average these guys are on the Naruto Universe power scale (with badasses like Itachi at the top and THE Kurenai at the bottom), this was the only real reason why they were now known as the Legendary Nins.

And so the Kyubi, as the story goes, was left completely defenseless against the Konoha Jounins…whom soon realized that they were also powerless, since they'd be like puny ants poking a sleeping elephant with q-tips. Finally, the only way they devised to get rid of the Nine-Tails before it woke up was to seal it away in a body, and they used the best thing available: the loudest and stupidest baby of the catapulted bunch, whom had almost single-handedly brought down the Kyubi with his annoying voice. But not to reward the boy, really: it was more like a precaution, with the thought that if the Kyubi one day took over its medium it would be too retarded to cause any real harm. And as we now know, things all turned out okay or almost.

Now, the only thing I don't understand in this story is why the Fourth Hokage as the legend goes on had finally been said responsible for all of this: maybe the Villagers wanted someone to blame, or had just felt bad for wasting him (literally).Who can remember anyway? The rest is history.

And now just to finish up the whole deal about Hokages, let's resume how Sarutobi, the third Hokage, had met his demise: as all of you can probably remember, in an epic battle against Orochimaru, where the former finally ended up backstabbed by a slippery flying sword and the latter with sore arms that made him cry like a little bitch. Well, put in that way it sounds kinda lame, but that was the basic idea. An important thing to mention would also be that the Sandaime was the only Hokage yet to live beyond 30, mostly because he discovered chilling off was the only way to go. See the time the man had wisely spent on his hobbies, like painting and surfing adult channels on his magical crystal globe. One minute of silence for the legendary Hokage, the only one yet whom had truly lived and fallen in an honorable way at the very end.

………..

That said, let's get back to Tsunade.

Well, for all she's worth, Tsunade didn't have her Sensei's wisdom nor patience. Oh, she tried, but usually ended up coming short. Her technique wasn't off by that much, but Orochimaru was just a really difficult case to deal with. You see, Tsunade had done all the correct decisions, treating Orochimaru like any child throwing a temper tantrum: she had tried ignoring the wannabe villain in hopes that he'd eventually give up his antics out of boredom. And by God, she had tried.

She tried not slapping her forehead every time she heard that he had rebuilt his Hidden Sound Village, using the bottomless money supply he had from collecting his own life insurance. And she tried calmly ignoring the threat/insult/booby-trapped letters he kept on flooding her mailbox with, and the retarded Sound Nins that came every once in a while to paint-spray vulgar images on her Village's walls like a bunch of teenage delinquents.

She tried SO hard, fighting against all odds and the unhealthy blood pressure. But eventually…SNAP. There were places where she just had to draw lines with bullet holes as exclamation points.

Oh, it's not that Tsunade was a bad Hokage. Sure, she could be incredibly selfish and impulsive at times, but under her administration Konohagure had never seen better days. The economy flourished, leading to the opening of new trade routes with other Countries, mostly thanks to her wise investments in the markets of jeeps and lawnmowers. And as a political figure, she was very popular amongst other Hokages as a prudent leader whom kept her alliances in check and used her influence to maintain a lasting peace amongst Hidden Countries. Or, since all the other Hokages were all perverted old men, maybe they just loved her for the eye candy. Go figure, she got her way any day anyway: her position enabled her to do just about anything she wanted and still get paid for it. And better yet, she KNEW it. No sweat, she had the sweetest job in the whole world. She was…THE GONDAIME HOKAGE!

And granted, it was pretty stupid trying to pick a fight with her in the first place, even if you considered yourself immortal. She was never one to stand back from challenges and if you pushed your luck too much, you could bet that she would get you your fight, even if it implied clearing her entire Village's schedule as a mean to do so. Tsunade definitely was anything but an angel: if anything, she was somewhat more of a witch…or short of a better description, a big, bad, bouncy mob queen. On steroids.

If Orochimaru was begging for it so bad, he was going to get it. Our story begins as a very pissed-off Tsunade called an emergency Jounin Assembly in her office.

* * *

"Oi, sorry that I'm so very late like usual, and for the nerve I have to even apologize for it." 

Kakashi's three Jounin colleagues were pretty much used to this by now, so they just turned at their friend and lazily waved at him. Tsunade, however, looked like she was about to pop a vein: to make a long story short, her foot was stomping, her eyes were glaring and her hands were manning the mounted M60 she kept behind her desk.

"Why hello, Hatake Kakashi. So what happens to be your excuse this time?" she asked, sarcasm obviously dripping from every word of her sentence.

Needless to say, Kakashi immediately stopped smiling and started sweating profusely at the sight of the impressive artillery currently pointed in his direction: there wasn't even the smallest doubt in his mind that Tsunade wouldn't hesitate opening fire. He gulped and made some quick calculations: first of all, both her trigger-pressing reaction time and the bullet velocity of a M60 were faster than the 3 seconds he needed to run out of the room and hide. That definitely wasn't a good thing.

"I…" he started, but was cut off.  
"And please, at least TRY this time." Tsunade hissed, her finger trembling nervously on the trigger.

This was a rather complicated situation, you see. Knowing Kakashi, if he tried telling her the truth, he was screwed. And if he lied and that she didn't believe him, he was also screwed. So after a long moment of reflecting on his options, our friend finally decided to go with the latter. What was a man supposed to do anyway?

"I…um…was walking…and…got ran over by a jeep?" the silver-haired man tried, his visible eye shifting nervously left and right once.

Now anywhere else in the world, this kind of lie wouldn't have worked: the odds of something similar happening were so low that it would have rather sounded as if Kakashi had purposely wanted to insult his Hokage's intelligence. In Konoha Village however, where everyone always lived on the edge, even crossing the streets was something so dangerous one always had to wear their best set of clothes to prevent themselves from unexpectedly dying without style. Just to give you an idea to start with, there were about 2500 jeeps in the Hidden Leaf village for a population of about 1000 villagers. Do the math: that's about 2.5 jeeps per person. It was actually possible to determine social status just by looking at how many jeeps one individual owned: the Uchiha Household for instance, had 63 jeeps, while Kakashi by himself had 27 jeeps. Tsunade, the Hokage, had a parking lot with 392 jeeps, while the person with the lowest social ranking in the Village, Kurenai, had the fifth of a jeep. Naruto for his part laid somewhere in between with a rundown motorcycle he managed to salvage in a junkyard somewhere. Simple, isn't it?

Needless to say, for such a little town, every day's rush hour was like an American disaster movie. On the other hand, car accidents in the Hidden Leaf Village had also become more forgiving, as only about 25 of the cases were now lethal: as everyone had become used to this lifestyle of dodging and minimizing car impacts, it now wasn't that unusual for someone to get ran over, immediately get back up and go home to change. This was a realist calculation, since the opposite would have meant Konoha's immediate extinction from the face of the Earth. Tsunade, as the Hokage, knew this better than anyone and so was thrown into a state of absolute confusion as to whether Kakashi was lying or not.

"…All right. Just for this time, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt," Tsunade finally sighed, letting go of her gun.

Kakashi for his part exhaled in relief: that had definitely been one of his moments.

"So, what is this meeting about, Gondaime-sama?" Asuma asked.  
"I'll get straight to the point: Orochimaru is alive."

The whole room fell silent.

"And…? Why are we being called here?" Kakashi motioned her to go on, as this was nothing new.  
"Because this especially concerns all your former students. Shikamaru's unit has been ambushed by Orochimaru, and the whole squad is now M.I.A."

The room fell silent again, but this time out of incredulity.

"This can't be! Shikamaru is way too smart to get trapped by anyone!" Asuma cried out defensively.  
"You're talking about the OLD Shikamaru. Nowadays, I wouldn't be too surprised." Kakashi pointed out, referring to our shadow-using friend's massive IQ drop over the years.

Asuma growled: the other man was right.

"If it's not too much to ask, what were they doing exactly when they were captured, Gondaime-sama?" Kurenai asked.

Tsunade sighed.

"I had dispatched them on a A-classed mission in the Hidden Sound country. But uh…that's classified information."

The Jounins just looked at their Hokage, detecting she was obviously hiding something from them. They decided to let it slide.

"Anyway," Tsunade continued, "they were apparently ambushed while coming back from that mission. Orochimaru must have attacked them while they were at their weakest. Knowing Nara Shikamaru, he probably surrendered instead of putting up an useless fight."

"Unforgivable!" Asuma yelled out. "No one picks on our students like that! Let's go kick Orochimaru's sorry butt!"  
"Grrr! And I thought that I had done that Orochimaru in for good the last time!" Gai said, slapping his fists in frustration.

This made Tsunade roll her eyes.

"Gai, you should have known by now that merely running over Orochimaru with a jeep wouldn't kill him."  
"I knew that! That's why I did it twice!" Gai said defensively.  
Tsunade exploded.  
"This is Orochimaru we're talking about! You think twice would be enough! The darn cockroach won't die unless you run him over at least FIVE times!" grumbled Tsunade, fuming.

That's when Kakashi scratched his head and nervously took a step forward.

"Well…Um…Actually, Hokage-sama…The truth is that we ALL ran him over," he finally said. "You see, Gai was driving in front of us, and he looked like he had so much fun that we kinda aimed for Orochimaru too…"

Our favorite Copy-Ninja then looked a bit embarrassed, probably because he had enjoyed doing that a bit too much.

"I ran him over too, after I saw both Gai and Kakashi do it," Asuma admitted.  
"Likewise," added Kurenai, so as not to be left out.

This threw Tsunade completely off and she had to count again on her fingers.

"Wait a minute…do you mean to say that Orochimaru survived even though all four of you ran him over, including Gai whom did it twice? That adds up to five times! It's impossible!"  
"Well…one of us might have MISSED," Kakashi pointed out, his eye at the same time turning towards a certain other Jounin.  
On cue, everyone turned back at Kurenai and GLARED at her: the female Jounin first laughed nervously, but then hung her head down in shame and started whimpering.

Tsunade sat back down behind her desk and crossed her arms.

"Okay, putting all that aside, are you four interested in saving your students?"  
"Well none of MY students are actually part of Shikamaru's ANBU unit." Kakashi pointed out, but was told to shut up.  
"WHAT SHOULD WE DO!" Gai cried out, since he was in the exact opposite situation. All of HIS students were in danger.

Tsunade sighed.

"Well, as you know, since this time Orochimaru has hostages we can't just go crashing in like we usually do. We're going to have to accept his deal. Orochimaru is proposing a trade."  
"What kind of…trade?" Kakashi asked, eyeing her suspiciously.  
"He wants us to hand over Gai to them, so that he can exact revenge for all that ugly jeep business."

Upon hearing this, Gai reacted by jumping up in surprise.  
"WHAT THE HELL?.?"  
"Gai, I truly admire your willingness to sacrifice yourself for your students. I'll remember to mourn you when I visit our Village's Heroes gravesite." Kakashi said with a fake tear, tapping on his Gai's shoulder.  
"HEY! W…Wait a minute! Why am I the only one who gets to be sacrificed? I thought we agreed that we all had a hand at running over Orochimaru the last time! Why only me!.?"  
"Unfortunately Gai, you're NOT the only one," Tsunade continued, sighing. "Actually Orochimaru wants us to hand over Asuma, too."  
"WHAT DID I DO!.?" Asuma cried out, looking completely shocked and offended.  
"Well apparently, it seems you've accidentally killed Orochimaru's beloved grandmother sometimes amidst the raging battle. And then, there's also that issue about the jeep."  
"…Oh. So he does have a valid reason to hate me," the bearded man reasoned, scratching his chin.  
"Well, 2 Jounin for 7 Anbus, I'd say that's a pretty fair trade. Godspeed, Gai, Asuma. I'll try my best to fill in for the both of you back here," Kakashi said, shaking Asuma's hand.  
"Hold it, Kakashi. You're on Orochimaru's hit list, too," Tsunade said.  
"…_NANI_!.?" Kakashi yelled out, his eye opening up to its full extent. "I didn't do anything! That whole jeep thing was an accident, I swear!"  
"I don't think Orochimaru even cares about that. Actually, I think he just dislikes you because you have a Sharingan while he still doesn't. Who knows? Maybe he's settling for yours."  
"That conniving son of a…! This baby's mine!" Kakashi yelled out, placing protectively his hand on his covered left eye.  
No one was touching HIS Sharingan, especially not after all the trouble he had went through to get one.

"Well, that's Orochimaru's list of demands. If any single one of you weren't to comply, then Shikamaru's squad in its entirety would be executed on the spot."  
"Sacrifices have to be made," Kakashi grumbled, but Gai and Asuma slapped him in the back of the head.

"Wait a minute, what about me? Orochimaru really hasn't said anything about me?" Kurenai felt she needed to ask, mainly because she felt left out in this whole tradeoff deal.

And then the unexpected happened: the Gondaime just stared at her for a few minute with a very puzzled look, as if she had just noticed the presence of the younger woman.

"…No, I don't think so. And who exactly are you, again?" Tsunade finally asked with a raised eyebrow.  
For some reason after that comment, Kurenai's eyes became very wide and watery. Completely mystified by this reaction, Tsunade turned to Kakashi for answers only to find him sighing.  
"Her name's Kurenai, the dead last Jounin in this Village. You know, that kunoichi whom specializes in Genjutsu, and even then is not all that good at it…?"  
"Oooh, I remember now!" Tsunade exclaimed, slapping her fist into her other hand in realization. She then frowned.  
"Well, no wonder: Genjutsu sucks. No one actually uses that."  
The very hurt Kurenai then fell on the ground and started bawling, with Gai at her side trying to comfort her. Soon enough, after he realized that it didn't work and that she wasn't paying any attention to him anyway, he went for her purse instead.

"Anyway, all that's beside the point!" Tsunade said, completely ignoring both Kurenai and Gai. "Are you Jounins going to accept Orochimaru's deal or what? You do remember Shikamaru and his friends have entrusted their lives to us, don't you?"

Everyone turned back at their Hokage in surprise, with the exception of Kurenai whom was weeping in a corner of the room by herself.

"Shikamaru is not irresponsible to the point of sending his whole team to their deaths. I believe the only reason why he would even consider surrendering would be to protect his friends from unnecessary battles in their worn-out state."

"In other words…he's stalling for time. They're waiting for us to do something."Asuma said, snapping his fingers in realization. "It's our duty now to answer them."

"I guess that does put things in another perspective..." Kakashi reasoned.  
"Well, I'll go. I've had my time, while Shikamaru and Chouji still have too much to live for. I'll gladly exchange my life for them," Asuma finally said.  
Gai followed him up.  
"I'm coming too. Neiji was an exemplary student, and Lee will carry on my legacy so I have no regrets," he said, clenching his fist dramatically.  
Notice how he also conveniently forgot to mention Tenten, the biggest failure of his entire career as a Jounin teacher.

Kakashi thought for a while and then nodded: true, he didn't have any ex-students on that Anbu squad NOR did he really want to let go of his Sharingan. But he knew very well when sacrifices had to be made and he was willing to be part of it. Oh c'mon, you know he'd do it: Kakashi was a pretty nice guy once you looked underneath the underneath.  
"Well then, let's all go and die," he sighed.

Tsunade nodded approvingly, and then pulled out a map from her desk.

"Now that that's settled, here's the attack plan. While the three of you will act as a decoy, I will dispatch Uchiha Sasuke and a small unit of Jounins to make asurprise attack from the flank: they should be able to secure your escape when the whole exchange process is done. I will also send another unit to infiltrate the Hidden Sound Village by its Southern Gate while the attention's on you guys, in order to locate and release Shikamaru and his friends. From there on out, you will have free run as to what to do. Do you guys have any questions?"

The 4 Jounins could only stare at Tsunade with their mouths wide open.

"Wait…you're not just going to perform the exchange? You're actually going to try and save us?"  
"I'm not that heartless, dammit! It's my duty to protect all members of the Hidden Leaf! Not only am I going to save Nara Shikamaru and his team, but under no circumstances would I have sacrificed the whole lot of you as a mean to do so! For God's sake, it would have been like throwing a baby into a cage of hungry lions and expected it to come out alive!"  
"Or stripping Iruka naked, making him walk 10 feet in the village and expecting him to remain unmolested." Kakashi pointed out.

Everyone just looked at him.

"What? It just seemed more in context with the whole theme about our village." Kakashi defended himself.  
Tsunade rolled her eyes.  
"Kakashi, the difference with my expression and yours is that odds right now are bad. Not IMPOSSIBLE."

Everyone nodded, and somewhere in the village Iruka sneezed from a glacial feeling crawling up his spine. Again.

"Well, I understand that we're going to pull Sasuke-kun out of retirement again…But what about the unit that's supposed to infiltrate through the Southern Gate of the Hidden Sound Village? Do we have another Jounin capable of handling this delicate situation?"  
Tsunade scratched her head.  
"It's risky, but I was thinking about only dispatching one individual in that unit. That's the best shot we have."  
The Jounins looked at her again, and were surprised to see her smiling.

"It's simple. While the Tenken takes care of most things up front, we're going to unleash the Byako on their backs."

* * *

It happened that both Ino and the young Sakura were off for some special kunoichi training in the mountains that day. Without his wife and daughter around, Sasuke didn't have much to do and decided to spend his day relaxing and cultivating himself a bit. He didn't have much of a choice anyway: while his house was in a real mess since the Shikamaru squad didn't show up like they usually did, he knew himself that he was way too incompetent with these kinds of things not to endanger himself uselessly. His un-proficiency at housework had gotten so bad to a point that it was almost suspicious that he did it on purpose so as to never have to work at anything. Maybe he was just the kind of guy who'd rather impale himself with a broom than spend 2 hours sweeping the house. Who knew? Something blunt like a broom definitely wasn't anywhere near his weapon of choice anyway. 

After some time spent at the Kabuki theater, where he disappointedly had to watch the out-of-work Genma talk to himself with sock puppets for 2 solid hours, Sasuke decided to get some lunch and stopped by the local fast-food, ordering a soda, some chili dogs and fries. And so, he was simply enjoying his meal when Kakashi suddenly appeared out of nowhere in a puff of chakra smoke. It was a well-known fact that sneaking up on people was one of the Copy-Ninja's favorite hobbies. Especially people whom were in the middle of drinking something.

"….What?" a very annoyed Sasuke asked, while passing a napkin over his face to clean up all the soda he had just nasally spewed over himself. That joke had gotten old a long time ago.  
"You know, for a dog-lover like you, you know they don't actually make those with dog meat, do you?"  
"Get to the point, please," the Uchiha sighed, his mood darkening.

The silver-haired man chuckled a bit and then pulled out a kunai.

"I'm just here to relay a message from the Hokage," he said, and then performed a sign with the kunai.

Sasuke understood immediately: not many people knew this, but this was the secret sign that Tsunade had invented for desperate situations where she needed his help and had to pull him out of retirement. Well, at least that was the original idea: nowadays the woman freely abused of it, often calling upon Sasuke for stupid little chores that she just didn't feel like doing herself. And there was nothing he could do about it: she was the Hokage after all, and he had to respect that.

More importantly, the 'secret sign' in its actuality consisted of 3 rapid air slashes with a kunai in the general direction of his crotch: that said a lot more than Sasuke even cared to understand. Moreover, Kakashi even had the kindness to raise the number of slashes up to 10, since he found it so amusing.

Understandably, Sasuke's mood darkened even moreso. His chewing speed also decreased drastically, considering the nature of his food. At this point, his appetite was completely gone.

"…And what will the blackmail of the day be?" he asked sarcastically.  
"I can't tell you here. Come back with me to the Hokage's office and I'll brief you on the way," his elder answered.  
"Fine, I'll come. But for ruining my lunch, just give me 5 minutes to finish up my drink and fries, okay?"

Kakashi drew his kunai again and re-started the slashing motions, even faster this time.

"FINE. 2 minutes. And for God's sake, PLEASE stop doing that. It makes me queasy."  
"That's the idea," Kakashi chuckled.

Exactly 2 minutes later, Sasuke had emptied his tray in the nearest trash bin and was jumping some rooftops with his former Sensei.

* * *

"So you understand the situation at hand, do you, Naruto?" Tsunade asked. 

Naruto rubbed his sore chin and nodded.  
"I think I do…What I still don't understand however was why Kurenai-sensei had to throw a BRICK in my face to get my attention…"  
"Eh, we TRIED calling out to you with no success," Gai pointed out. "Besides, standing on the roof of your house with a fork to steal cable television is just wrong to start with."  
"And I was aiming somewhere 5 feet left of you…" Kurenai admitted, hanging her head down in shame.  
Anko patted her on the shoulder.  
"Don't worry about it, Kurenai. The pervert was probably watching something dirty again anyway."

Naruto opened his mouth to defend himself, but then noticing that he was being outnumbered by the 3 women present in the room, he decided to remain silent. He just placed a hand on the back of his head and laughed nervously.

"ANYWAY…" Tsunade coughed out. "I've been through your folder, Naruto. I won't comment on your questionable hobbies outside of duty, but for the short time you've been back with us, you've already completed a dozen of difficult missions by yourself with top-notch records. You've been chosen for this current mission because I believe you are the very best we have as far as scouting and assasination skills are concerned."

Naruto beamed with pride and grinned.

"Well of course! Don't you think I'd have picked up at least that much from my years on the road? I'm awesome, ain't I?"  
"HOWEVER," Tsunade frowned. "I can't say I always approve of your methods."

Naruto raised an eyebrow while the Hokage shook her head.

"I'll admit that it gets the work done: that is undeniable. But at least tell me this, Naruto," she articulated slowly. "Why do you always have to…tear your targets apart?"

"From the last scene, it's written here that it took the police 3 whole days to clean up what was left of the body after you were done with it," Anko said, flipping through some files. "Your infiltration and extraction sequences always go perfectly, but why do you always have to make such a mess at the actual scene?"

"I've heard about this too. I don't believe that kind of violence is necessary," Asuma said.  
"Like YOU can talk," Gai pointed out, referring to the bloodbaths the bearded man always left behind.  
"True, I can't," Asuma agreed, raising his shoulders.  
"Keep on changing the subject and someone here is going to die strangled with their own intestines!" Tsunade roared, prompting the 2 male Jounins to shut up.

And all that while, Naruto had simply stood his ground. Even when confronted by his superiors about his actions, he was very calm and smiling: he obviously had no regrets and as far as he was concerned, wasn't guilty of anything.

It was unnerving. The young man in front of her was making Tsunade terribly nervous, and a bit of sweat trickled down her forehead.

"Look, Naruto," she started, sighing deeply. "I'm not judging you, here. As a matter of fact, as long as you continue working for us, you can keep on approaching your missions any way you want. But could you at least help us understand…?"

"I followed my orders and killed my targets. I don't need to make any excuse for my actions." Naruto answered bluntly.

When it became obvious that no one was going to be satisfied with just that, he scratched the back of his head.

"Well, I'll admit that I also tend to get carried away sometimes. You see, some of the targets I was assigned were murderers, rapists…I just can't stand people like that. Those guys think that everything is over once their deed is done, but they can't even understand…"

Naruto looked up, thoughtfully.

"They can't even understand that the pain will carry on to the victim's loved ones, and burden them forever. Nothing is that easy. Left unattended to, such feelings can even darken and keep on festering in one's mind, slowly turning into deep resentment. Eventually, it could ruin entire lives."  
"Well I guess you'd know, uh, Uzumaki?" a voice commented.

Everyone turned back, realizing that Kakashi and Sasuke had finally arrived. Most of the Jounins couldn't help noticing that almost instinctively at their sides, Naruto had jumped back defensively like an cornered animal.  
"Uchiha," Naruto hissed between his teeth. Sasuke simply smirked when confronted with such animosity.

The two men kept a respectable distance and faced each other, tension quickly climbing up in the room.

Meanwhile, completely oblivious to all of that our favorite Copy-Ninja had been automatically assigned the responsibility of explaining the tardy arrival to Tsunade.  
"Well, sorry that we're a bit late…We…um…got lost a bit," Kakashi tried.  
"…In your own village?.?" Gai pointed out, incredulous.  
Tsunade slapped a giant fan on her desk, silencing everyone and their petty arguments. The ninjas regrouped and lined up in front of their Hokage in an orderly fashion.  
"By the way, why didn't you tell Hokage-sama the truth? We almost got ran over by jeeps on our way here," Sasuke silently asked Kakashi.  
"I've already used that this morning," the elder Jounin whispered back, hanging his head down.

"Now that we're all gathered here, let us resume the situation. I take it you've been briefed on this matter?" Tsunade asked, looking directly at Sasuke. He nodded.  
"And so do you accept this mission?"  
"Whatever," the young man answered nonchalantly, knowing only too well that he was going to be blackmailed into this matter no matter WHAT he said.

Tsunade now turned to Naruto, and was very relieved to see him give her the thumbs up.

"Now...I'm aware that there is some bad blood between the two of you, but I'll have to ask you to cooperate on this mission. There are many more lives than your own riding on this," she said.  
"Bah, don't worry, Tsunade-obasan! I'm not going to do anything stupid while the lives of some of my best friends are on the line!" Naruto laughed out, and then turned his head towards Sasuke.  
"My quarrel with this guy can wait. I'll cooperate with Uchiha for now," he said calmly, patting the other man on the shoulder and then stepping outside.

Sasuke sighed: even Naruto's efforts at concealing his own hostility were strained. They were on bad terms, and this was obviously going to become an issue once they were on the field. But there was something the raven-haired Jounin had to recognize however: Naruto's strength…was the real thing.

The Uchiha winced: his shoulder was throbbing at the point where the blond man had previously briefly placed his hand, the muscles stinging as the blood slowly regained its circulation.  
"Truly a frightful thing..." he quickly thought to himself before turning to the others.

"Uzumaki will form a one-man unit. As for me, I'll request a team of five Jounins for this mission," Sasuke finally declared in a composed voice.

"Granted. Haul ass, you guys!" Tsunade said, ordering around the Jounins whom just happened to be there.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow and Tsunade caught the very quick motion of his eyes, which questionably pointed towards Kurenai's general direction.

"I don't want to hear any complaints, Uchiha: even at his age, Kakashi alone is still worth a Jounin and a half. Gai's worth a good 1.4 himself, and as for Asuma, he's equal to at least 1.1 Jounins. And with Anko herself being worth one Jounin, it all adds up to the 5 Jounins you wanted. Do the math if you want. Eh, you even get Kurenai as a freebie, for whatever decorative purposes you may need!"

The female Jounin in question winced as the Hokage's reference to her as living scenery scarred her for life. As for Sasuke, he trying processing Tsunade's reasoning for a while, before coming up with the conclusion that it just didn't make any sense.

"…Hokage-sama, not to sound disrespectful, but…don't these guys already have to act as decoys?"  
"Well then, you'll just have to get off your butt and cover up for whatever else you need. Give me a break here! We're out of real Jounins in this Village. Do you really want me to call out Genma to back you up with his sock puppets no jutsu?.?"

And so the conversation officially ended there. Once again, Sasuke left the Hokage's office with the familiar feeling that he had just been cheated.

* * *

"Everyone's got their equipment? We'll be leaving in exactly 5 minutes. Use this time to do a last checkup." 

The group of Jounins was now standing in front of the jungle, beyond which laid the terrifying Hidden Sound Country and Orochimaru's seemingly indestructible Village. Since the team had some free time before departure, Sasuke decided to do a roll count and check if every head was there.

First of all, he had to agree with the Hokage: he had a darn good team of Jounins to work with this time. Hatake Kakashi, the famous Copy-Ninja, was both his ex-Sensei and the ex-#1 technician of Konoha Village: Sasuke was well-placed to know that as long as it didn't involve getting anywhere on time, he could count on this fellow's abilities any day of the week. As for his eternal rival, Maito Gai, he was just as awesome at Taijutsu as he was an annoying prick, providing a loud but yet very reliable backup. And although he wasn't as good as the two others, Asuma, A.K.A the fearsome 'Scratchinator', was still slightly above your average Jounin. And Kurenai…well…was Kurenai.

Sasuke suddenly noticed that the female Jounin in question had vanished inexplicably, and tried masking his relief with an annoyed tone.

"Not that I really care whether she finally shows up or not, but where's Kurenai-san?" Sasuke asked, simply because it was his duty as team leader to do so.  
"You don't have to worry, Uchiha-kun: I spiked her coffee. She'll leave us alone for a while," chuckled Asuma.  
"Nice! Good call, Asuma!" exclaimed Gai, and the two Jounins slapped hands.  
"…You guys are real assholes, doing that to a woman," scoffed Anko, rolling her eyes. "You make even that pervert Naruto seem like a nice, sensible guy in comparison."  
She glared at Naruto, whom for his part turned back and started whistling innocently. Just yesterday, he had been caught peeping in the hot springs and then hung upside down like a piñata for 5 straight hours, as every female in the room took her turn disciplining him with a baseball bat.

Before they realized he was actually enjoying the spanking.

"Hey hey c'mon now guys, having Kurenai on board's not so bad," said Kakashi, trying to sound practical. "We could always have used her as cannon fodder, and just stuck her in front of us to make the enemy waste ammunition."  
Upon hearing this, his colleagues all turned and just looked at him inquisitively as if he was one sick bastard.  
"What? It's called efficient resource management. I got the idea from Shikamaru since he apparently also has to deal with a similar case in his unit," Kakashi continued.

The other Jounins were wondering why they had never thought of that before when Kurenai actually DID show up.

"Sorry I'm late, everyone. I had forgotten my shuriken pack at home," she said apologetically.  
But instead of answering, everyone just stared at her with very surprised looks on their faces.  
"Kurenai…didn't you forget your coffee?" Asuma tried.  
It was Kurenai's turn to be surprised.  
"Huh? Coffee? But I never drink coffee. You remember that I only drink herbal tea, right?" she pointed out, making Asuma slap his own face.  
"But then…WHOSE coffee cup was that?" Kakashi asked out loud.

The Jounins all started pondering on the question…and suddenly remembered that there had only been one other person with them in the room at that time. Upon realizing that, they immediately started running around in a blind panic.

"…WE'RE GONNA DIE!"

* * *

"Strange? Today, the coffee…tastes kind of funny," Tsunade thought. "Who the heck made this?"  
She stared suspiciously at her cup for several minutes.  
"Oh well," she said, taking another sip and then getting back to work.

* * *

There were 3 minutes left, and Sasuke went on with his roll count: now accounted for were Kakashi, Gai, Asuma and Kurenai. And all in all, there were seven of them if he counted himself, Sasuke thought. There were only 2 other members left. 

Those two, well, the Uchiha had mixed feelings about. Anko wasn't a bad kunoichi, he knew at least that much: apparently she had even made a special request to Tsunade in order to join this expedition, since she too had some business with Orochimaru. But even though she was herself a Jounin in good standing, Sasuke knew that the older woman hadn't taken the field in some time, having been involved in more pacific occupations as of late. She was looking good, but there was no way her skills couldn't have rusted after all this time.

More importantly, she didn't stand a chance in a one-on-one against Orochimaru, and so he was particularly wary about her asking to go mano-a-mano.

"Uchiha, Orochimaru is MINE. I won't have you interfere when I'll confront him. Is that clear?"  
Sasuke slapped his own face. Just as he had thought.  
"I'll allow you to fight him as an individual favor. However, if at any point in time I consider that your personal issues are putting our mission in jeopardy, I will jump in. Please remember that, Anko-san."  
She spat, a bit disappointed, but finally nodded. That was enough to satisfy her.  
"Good enough," she grinned, and went back to setting up her equipment.

Naruto, for his part, had just been sitting there mentally preparing himself: it was difficult to tell what his feelings were at the moment. Heck, it was difficult telling ANYTHING about him when he was in this state: now that he had calmed down and sealed his chakra in preparation for the mission, the usually bright young man had returned to being nothing more than a silhouette in the background. Even though he kept telling himself that there were no illusions, Sasuke couldn't help but get the odd impression that he was staring at a ghost.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you, Uchiha. That was discourteous of me."  
"I can understand…this is the first time we've met in 8 years, is it not? But I guess we're just not the kind of people with such happy histories that we could both sit back behind some sake and laugh about old times."  
"I'm glad we're at least agreeing on that," Naruto nodded.

An awkward moment of silence passed before Sasuke noticed that Naruto didn't bring any ninja equipment with him.

"You didn't bring anything?" he inquired.  
"My specialties are hand-to-hand fighting and blood jutsus: carrying useless packs of scrolls and weighty weapons would only slow me down. And I could say the same about you." Naruto pointed out, referring to the fact that Sasuke didn't have his 2 familiar scabbards strapped at his side.  
"I don't use swords anymore," Sasuke defended himself. "I don't think I'll need to for this mission, anyway."  
"A pity."  
"Why is that?"  
Naruto chuckled.  
"I would have liked to refresh my memory, as to how deadly and unforgiving your fighting style was. And in exchange, I would have showed you mine, so we'd be on equal grounds for the times to come."

The blond man threw out several quick air jabs to mark his point.

"Never forget. We're going to fight, Uchiha, sooner or later. And when we do, one of us will not survive."  
"Yes, I'm prepared to face that consequence," Sasuke answered, standing upstraight.

Naruto laughed out.

"You were always such a stiff. Bah, it doesn't really matter right now just how badly I'm aching for a good fight: my best friend is in danger. What would I look like if I didn't even lift a finger to save her? God only looks away for so long, and I'll be DAMNED if I ever let anyone else precious to me die before my very eyes," he said, staring back at Sasuke.

The Uchiha shuddered a bit at the last comment, as he thought he detected some bitterness in the voice. He still couldn't get used to that strange yellow glint Naruto had now perpetually embedded in his eyes.

After he was sure that he had made an impression on his rival, Naruto slid on his battle gloves and spat on the side.  
"Time's up. Give the order, Uchiha."

It took the troubled Sasuke several seconds for things to get back into focus. He quickly shook his head, regaining his alertness and acute senses.

"…Well," Sasuke finally said coolly, recomposing himself. "Let's move out everyone."  
The mission had officially started: the group of Jounins acknowledged the order approvingly and then silently started entering the jungle. Soon enough, they'd be quickly picking up the pace and breaking into a moving ninja formation, becoming nothing more than shadows rapidly bouncing off branches and flying through the thick foliage at record speed.

Or not.

"Screw this," whined Kakashi. "This kind of intense physical work is really bad for my back."  
"Ah-ha, my eternal rival! You should have known this would have happened sooner or later, being the reckless ninja that you were on your younger days! And meanwhile, I get off easy with some light rheumatisms!"  
"That's still not so bad…Asuma, you've become practically asthmatic from smoking too much, right?" Kurenai pointed out.  
"Let's just go back to the village and grab a jeep," Asuma sighed, already tired from walking.  
"Can we leave already!" Sasuke finally snapped.

And so, after walking back to the village, getting one of Sasuke's jeeps out of the hangar and dealing with several complications ensued from a misunderstanding between Naruto and Anko when he asked her to hop on his motorcycle, our friends were off. Personal problems could always come later, but definitely not now: right now these guys were on a job and headed for the infamous Sound Country, perhaps to their doom…

And they got there in five minutes flat, since the Hidden Sound Country wasn't even that far away to start with. That's mostly because Orochimaru had never took the trouble to walk very far away from the Hidden Leaf country after he was first banished from it: after eating all his food rations for the month in a single day, he had actually decided to found his own Village right across the border before starving to death. As a matter of fact, it was so remote to Konohagure that you could actually even SEE Orochimaru's village from the window up in Tsunade's office. As things were, the only real separation between the two countries nowadays was an electrical toll booth which charged 2 whole bucks per person to cross from one country to the other: it was also considered an inter-country system of defense since the high price of passage usually could dissuade the countries from invading each other. Stupid? Maybe, but it had worked wonders for more than two dozen years now!

"All right, we're here. Can I get off now? I don't feel comfortable riding with mokkori-san here," Anko said, jumping off the blond Jounin's rundown bike.  
"I told you already! THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT!" Naruto whined, with one black eye and half his teeth missing.

The other Jounins for their part waited for their vehicle to come to a complete stop and disembarked in a more controlled manner.

"Let's just get this over with, PLEASE," Sasuke sighed.  
"Hey, does anyone here have any change left in their pockets?"  
"Nope, I'm broke. How about you?"  
"Kurenai, you're paying for us. If you weren't here we would have saved two whole bucks."  
"EH! That wasn't very nice!"

And so, after our grumbling ninjas somehow scraped together enough money to pay the outrageous toll, they passed through the customs and stepped straight into enemy territory.

* * *

**Author's notes/driveling: And so, out of nowhere, I'm back again. As some of you may have noticed, the only thing more random than this fic itself are its updates. Oh yeah. **

I'll be honest with you people: I've been buried in schoolwork during these past months. You see, becoming an honors student is easy: staying one however is a freakin' pain in the ass. Also, and I know this is unforgivable, I had almost lost all interest in Naruto fiction…until recently, when I played a bootleg Naruto fighting game on the PS2. I looked back into it and it turned out I had a lot of unfinished texts, and so I slapped together this chapter during my Christmas days off. Consider it my Christmas gift. Late. Very late. Aw, just be grateful, will ya?

**Thanks to the several new reviewers that came around during my absence: it is always very appreciated.**

**(repost note: I had temporarily changed the title of this story to 'Byako no Densetsu' (Legend of the Albino Fox) since I thought a really mindless title would maybe attract more readers, but I rather disliked it as some of you did apparently. So it's back to normal now.) **

_Blur - Song 2_ (...yeap... )


End file.
